South African tech companies that pay the biggest salaries – And how much more their CEOs earn

There are 10 private tech-related companies in South Africa which pay an average annual salary of more than R500,000 per employee.

Workers in the technology sector in South Africa typically earn more than many other industries due to an increased demand for skills in these areas.

MyBroadband has analysed the financial statements of major tech-related businesses listed on the JSE and state-owned enterprises which offer positions in technology-related roles.

The latter  – which includes companies like Eskom and the SABC – generally provide average employee salary figures as part of their integrated annual results.

For private companies, we divided the total staff costs, which includes bonuses and other incentives, by the number of employees as indicated in the latest annual results.

We found a total of 10 companies that paid average salaries of more than R500,000 per year in either FY2019 or FY2020.

The top 10 includes the country’s three biggest mobile operators – Vodacom, MTN, and Cell C – as well as five state-owned enterprises.

Vodacom claimed the top spot, paying its employees an average salary of R861,070, followed closely by the country’s biggest pay-TV provider – MultiChoice –  at R857,557.

Struggling power utility Eskom was third at R785,557 per employee, while the SABC came fourth, with its employees earning an average of R762,00 in 2019.

The table below shows the top 10 technology companies in South Africa which pay the highest average employee salaries.

CEO Salaries

The South African CEOs which are tasked with leading the companies listed above carry immense responsibility.

We compared their annual salaries with the average salary to see how much more they earned than the average employee at their company.

The comparison showed that telecoms CEOs in particular earned much higher salaries.

Telkom Group CEO Sipho Maseko’s total package was 35-times more than the average Telkom employee, while Shameel Joosub earned 50-times more than the average employee at Vodacom.

MTN Group CEO Rob Shuter took home more than 105-times the average salary of an MTN employee, although it should be noted that a large chunk of his total package of R58.23 million was made up by a R27.6-million bonus.

The table below shows the salaries of the CEOs of the top 10 highest-paying tech companies in South Africa, as well as how much more they earn than the average employee.

Now read: IT salaries – South Africa vs the UK