South African start-up jobs soar
South African start-ups are currently looking to fill almost 500 open positions, with Cape Town named the top hiring city in the country, according to new research.
A study conducted in November 2013 by job search engine Adzuna.co.za, analysed over 65,000 jobs on its database, and found that local start-ups across South Africa are currently recruiting for over 451 open positions, representing an increase of 28% in the last six months.
Cape Town accounts for over 50% of all advertised roles in the country, Adzuna said, followed by Johannesburg with 34%, and Pretoria with just over 5% of all start-up roles.
Online retailer Zando (15 roles), price comparison website, PriceCheck (11 positions) and communication agency Cerebra (10) lead the recruitment charge with dozens of open vacancies currently being advertised.
| # | Company | Location | Sector | # of Vacancies |
| 1 | Zando | Cape Town | E-commerce | 15 |
| 2 | PriceCheck | Cape Town | E-commerce | 11 |
| 3 | Cerebra | Johannesburg | Marketing | 10 |
| 4 | Cognician | Cape Town | Education | 6 |
| 4 | ROI Media | Cape Town | Marketing | 6 |
| 4 | 22Seven | Cape Town | Fintech | 6 |
| 7 | Creative Spark | Cape Town | Marketing | 5 |
| 8 | Mxit | Stellenbosch | Social | 4 |
| 8 | Obami | Cape Town | Education | 4 |
| 8 | Skyrove | Cape Town | Wireless | 4 |
According to Adzuna, developers are the most in-demand skills among South African start-ups with 40% of vacancies looking for web developers and software engineers.
Operations roles (account management, customer support & others) account for 23% of the jobs, while designers (14%), marketing (13%) and sales (10%) make up the rest of the vacancies.
Adzuna also noted that start-ups often pay a little less than more established corporations, finding it difficult to compete with large banks and other well-paying organisations with IT requirements.
“By way of compensation, they often offer stock options that may be inaccessible at more corporate entities, with around a third of the developer jobs surveyed offering some type of equity package,” the jobsite said.
It said that the swell in start-up jobs being advertised has also brought with it new, quirky language used in job ads. Companies are looking for “wizards”, “legends”, “ninjas”, “super heroes” and “rockstars”.
Gabriel Puliatti, country manager South Africa at Adzuna, said: “These new figures clearly show that, while still in its infancy, the South African tech start-up ecosystem is maturing and creating more jobs, with well-funded and profitable companies emerging, with a need for top talent and the financial clout to take on big tech companies.”
| # | Product | # of Vacancies |
% |
| 1 | E-commerce | 102 | 23% |
| 2 | Marketing | 91 | 20% |
| 3 | Financial Tech | 77 | 17% |
| 4 | Education | 35 | 8% |
| 5 | Social | 35 | 8% |
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