SA degrees with the highest starting salaries

MyBroadband’s recent qualifications and salary survey reveals that Engineering graduates enjoy the highest starting salaries, followed by BEd and BSc graduates.

The survey was completed 4,638 South Africans, of which 1,787 did a degree at a traditional South African university.

To rank the starting salaries of graduates, we only considered people who started working from 2013 onward.

The different degrees were then grouped together – like BA, BSc, or Engineering – and the average starting salary for each group was calculated.

No distinction was made between the degree levels – standard degrees, Honours, Master’s, and Doctorate qualifications were grouped together.

Highest starting salaries

Engineering graduates had the highest average starting salary, R19,069 per month, followed by BEd graduates at R15,825, and general BSc graduates at R14,541.

The infographic below provides a quick overview of the average salary per qualification.

A comprehensive look at the results

To get a more detailed picture of the survey results, an engineer who is well versed in statistics assisted with some calculations.

The table below shows the average salary, median salary, and the 25th and 75th percentiles of starting salaries for recent graduates.

Starting salaries per qualification
Qualification	Average starting salary	Median starting salary*	25% quantile**	75% quantile***
BSc Engineering or BEng Degrees	R19,069	R20,000	R15,000	R24,000
BEd Degrees	R15,825	R16,000	R14,850	R16,787
General BSc Degrees	R14,541	R12,000	R8,000	R20,250
BSc Computer Science or IT Degrees	R14,452	R15,000	R8,000	R19,000
BTech Degrees	R13,008	R11,500	R7,875	R14,500
BCom Degrees	R11,070	R10,000	R8,000	R13,000
BA Degrees	R9,534	R8,000	R6,875	R12,750
Diploma	R6,814	R6,000	R4,000	R8,750
Matric	R5,830	R4,975	R3,000	R6,500
Certification	R5,777	R5,500	R3,000	R7,000