{"id":877510,"date":"2026-09-30T16:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=877510"},"modified":"2026-09-30T15:56:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:56:19","slug":"the-44-jobs-paying-more-than-the-r30611-average-salary-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/877510\/the-44-jobs-paying-more-than-the-r30611-average-salary-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"44 jobs paying more than the R30,611 average salary in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa’s national average wage rose to R30,611 in the second quarter of 2026, and Stats SA’s Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) identified 44 jobs paying more than this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the latest QES, South Africa’s national average salary rose by 2.6%<\/a> quarter-on-quarter, while year-on-year average earnings increased by 4.1%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increase in the average salary came as South Africa’s total employment shrank by 14,000 quarter-on-quarter, a 0.1% decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year, total employment decreased by 95,000, a 0.9% decrease from June 2025 to June 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA also found that gross earnings paid to employees decreased by R4.8 billion quarter-on-quarter to R1.025 trillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first quarter of 2026, the gross earnings paid were R1.029 trillion, representing a 0.5% decline in the second quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there was an overall decline in gross earnings paid, some sectors reported increases, including community services, trade, construction, manufacturing, and electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gross earnings also increased year-on-year by 3.5%, despite the quarter-on-quarter decline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basic salaries\/wages and overtime increased in both the quarterly and annual amounts paid to employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For basic salaries and wages, the quarter-on-quarter increase was roughly R15.5 billion, or 1.7%, while the year-on-year increase was R26.7 billion, or 3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Total overtime payments increased by R2.7 billion from the first quarter, with sectors such as community services, business services, manufacturing, transport, trade, electricity, and construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While both basic salaries and overtime had positive quarterly growth, gross bonuses paid to employees declined by R23 billion, or 26.9%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The large decrease was primarily felt in five sectors \u2013 business services, community services, transport, manufacturing, and electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 44 highest-paying jobs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While Stats SA’s QES primarily tracks data from eight sectors, it also examines employment and earnings across 20 sub-sections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of these sub-sections are in the manufacturing industry, and community services are also split into government and non-government segments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within these 20 sub-sections, the QES further examines employment data for 91 jobs across South Africa’s formal sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of these 91 jobs, 44 stood out for having an average monthly wage higher than South Africa’s national average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first quarter of 2026, there were 43 jobs higher than the national average, with the manufacturing of radio receivers and recording devices joining the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The highest-paying job identified by the QES was in the finance sector, namely, Activities auxiliary to financial intermediation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other high-paying professions included those in the electricity and transport sectors, with finance-related jobs also featuring at the top end of the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bottom of the list is largely dominated by manufacturing jobs, particularly those related to making clothes or fabrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following describes each industry segment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Mining<\/strong> includes mining and quarrying<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Manufacturing<\/strong> includes food and beverages, furniture, textiles, wood, printing and publishing, petroleum and chemicals, non-metals and mineral products, electrical, medical and technology-related apparatus, and transport equipment<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Electricity & Water<\/strong> includes electricity, gas and water supply<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Trade<\/strong> includes wholesale, retail, motor, hotel and restaurants<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Transport<\/strong> includes freight, storage and postal communication<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Business services<\/strong> include financial intermediation, banking, insurance and real estate<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Government<\/strong> includes social and personal services run by and related to the state<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • NGO<\/strong> includes social and personal services run by and related to non-government organisations and entities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    The following table shows the 44 jobs which currently have higher estimated salaries than the national average:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Job title<\/strong><\/td>Sector<\/strong><\/td>Average monthly salary<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
    Activities auxiliary to financial intermediation<\/td>Finance<\/td>R77,409<\/td><\/tr>
    Electricity, gas, steam and water supply<\/td>Electricity and water<\/td>R67,677<\/td><\/tr>
    Air transport<\/td>Transport<\/td>R62,160<\/td><\/tr>
    Financial intermediation (i.e. Banks), except insurance and pension funding<\/td>Finance<\/td>R59,562<\/td><\/tr>
    Computer and related activities<\/td>Finance<\/td>R58,051<\/td><\/tr>
    Motor vehicles<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R50,426<\/td><\/tr>
    Coke oven products; petroleum refineries; processing of nuclear fuel<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R49,756<\/td><\/tr>
    Architectural, engineering and other technical activities<\/td>Finance<\/td>R49,692<\/td><\/tr>
    Health and social work<\/td>NGO<\/td>R48,851<\/td><\/tr>
    Legal, accounting, bookkeeping and auditing activities<\/td>Finance<\/td>R46,938<\/td><\/tr>
    Collection, purification and distribution of water<\/td>Electricity and water<\/td>R46,359<\/td><\/tr>
    Electric motors, generators and transformers<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R45,417<\/td><\/tr>
    National departments<\/td>Government<\/td>R44,148<\/td><\/tr>
    Post and telecommunications<\/td>Transport<\/td>R43,453<\/td><\/tr>
    Medical appliances and instruments and appliances for measuring, checking, testing, navigating and for other purposes, except optical instruments<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R42,968<\/td><\/tr>
    Sea and coastal water transport<\/td>Transport<\/td>R42,909<\/td><\/tr>
    Research and development<\/td>Finance<\/td>R42,232<\/td><\/tr>
    Universities and technikons<\/td>Government<\/td>R39,853<\/td><\/tr>
    Activities of membership organisation<\/td>NGO<\/td>R39,816<\/td><\/tr>
    Provincial departments<\/td>Government<\/td>R39,802<\/td><\/tr>
    Real estate activities<\/td>Finance<\/td>R39,753<\/td><\/tr>
    Basic chemicals<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R39,456<\/td><\/tr>
    Optical instruments and photographic equipment; watches and clocks<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R38,572<\/td><\/tr>
    Advertising<\/td>Finance<\/td>R38,529<\/td><\/tr>
    Railway and tramway locomotives and rolling stock; aircraft and spacecraft<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R37,759<\/td><\/tr>
    Non-gold<\/td>Mining<\/td>R37,242<\/td><\/tr>
    Wholesale trade<\/td>Wholesale<\/td>R36,521<\/td><\/tr>
    Gold<\/td>Mining<\/td>R35,993<\/td><\/tr>
    Supporting and auxiliary transport activities<\/td>Transport<\/td>R35,740<\/td><\/tr>
    General purpose machinery<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R35,640<\/td><\/tr>
    Other chemical products;<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R34,847<\/td><\/tr>
    Office, accounting and computing machinery<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R34,766<\/td><\/tr>
    Local government<\/td>Government<\/td>R34,651<\/td><\/tr>
    Insurance and pension funding<\/td>Finance<\/td>R34,589<\/td><\/tr>
    Land transport and transport via pipelines<\/td>Transport<\/td>R33,925<\/td><\/tr>
    Special purpose machinery<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R33,815<\/td><\/tr>
    Extra Budgetary institutions<\/td>Government<\/td>R33,686<\/td><\/tr>
    Basic iron and steel<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R33,361<\/td><\/tr>
    Other educational institutions<\/td>NGO<\/td>R32,678<\/td><\/tr>
    Paper and paper products<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R32,038<\/td><\/tr>
    Television and radio receivers, sound or video recording or reproducing apparatus and associated goods<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R31,938<\/td><\/tr>
    Basic precious and non-ferrous metals<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R31,547<\/td><\/tr>
    Publishing<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R31,197<\/td><\/tr>
    Electronic valves and tubes and other electronic components; television and radio transmitters and apparatus for line telephony and line telegraphy<\/td>Manufacturing<\/td>R31,189<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    South Africa’s national average salary grew in the second quarter of 2026, and the QES found 44 jobs paying more than it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":857877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2105304422725058935","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2221852905301775","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17917066374455763","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[22112,22113,1809],"class_list":["post-877510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-qes","tag-quarterly-employment-survey","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877510"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877711,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877510\/revisions\/877711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}