‘5 year experience’ jobs in South Africa that will make you millionaire

The 2025 Robert Walters Salary Survey shows that most of the highest-paying professional jobs in South Africa are reserved for those with extensive work experience.

But while 10 to 15 years of professional work experience is near-guaranteed to make you a top earner, there are a handful of positions that sit in the four to seven-year experience range that earn over R1 million per annum.

A recent poll by BusinessTech found that the R1 million mark is what most people consider to be ‘rich’ in South Africa.

There are not many positions outside of senior roles or those in government that reach that kind of annual pay with only a few years of experience behind you.

This is fairly evident in Robert Walters’ data, where only eight jobs made the cut.

For the jobs below, we specifically examined the 4-7 year experience range, with salaries starting at R1 million.

These were:

It must be noted that, while comprehensive, the salary data compiled by the survey does not include all sectors and positions in the country.

The focus is mainly on professional positions, or “office jobs”, not counting jobs such as airline pilots, engineers, medical personnel and government officials, who also have significant earning potential.

Members of parliament, for example, are some of the highest-paid individuals in the country, earning R1.27 million a year in 2024 (over R100,000 a month).

There are no qualifications or work experience needed for the position at all, making it one of the most easily accessible ways of becoming a millionaire without them.

The survey also does not include entrepreneurs or those who are otherwise self-employed, who also have the potential to make significant earnings.

Starting salaries

Outside of this handful of positions with a starting salary range of R1 million for 4-7 years experience, most of the other professional positions for this experience group start between R500,000 and R950,000 per annum.

For professionals starting out in their careers, starting salaries are quite humble—relative to the earning potential professionals can reach with enough experience at least.

BCom graduates, for example, starting out in the accounting and finance sector can expect to earn anywhere between R250,00 and R350,000 per year in their first three years.

Even without specialising, this can become a salary of R900,000 to R1.1 million with over 10 years of experience behind them.

However, specialising yields far higher salaries.

Becoming a Chartered Accountant (CA), for instance, pushes a starting salary to R350,000-R450,000 for part-qualified candidates and R550,000-R750,000 for qualified CAs.

Over time and with experience, salaries can hit as high as R1.6 million to R2.3 million a year after 10 years.

Starting salaries vary greatly by sector, though.

For human resources, lower-end salaries for 2 to 3 years of experience range between R120,000 and R372,000 per annum, while the legal fraternity’s range is higher, between R330,000 and R670,000, depending on the type of law firm.