Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Cape Town leads the way in start-ups and technical jobs
Gurus, wizards, ninjas in demand
GURUS, wizards, rockstars and ninjas are being sought for positions in Cape Town, with research revealing that the city leads the field as the top hiring hub in the country when it comes to start- up and technology companies.
This emerged as job search engine Adzuna released its findings on the demand for skills and available jobs, coinciding with the end of exams for matrics and graduates.
South African manager for Adzuna, Gabriel Puliatti, said their research, conducted this month, analysed more than 65 000 jobs on their database, and studied the hiring behaviour of more than 200 companies across the country. The top 40 start-up companies were extracted for deeper analysis.
One of the key findings saw a 28 percent increase in recruitment in the last six months by start-up companies, with more than half of the country’s jobs based in Cape Town. Joburg took second place at 34 percent, while other major cities lagged behind with Pretoria accounting for just more than 5 percent and Durban for 3 percent of all start-up roles.
The study looked at vacancies, geographical location, product offering and skills demand.
There are more than 450 positions being advertised by start-up companies.
“Cape Town, helped by the Silicon Cape initiative and entrepreneurial reputation, is leading the country in start-up and technology recruitment,” Puliatti said.
Skills in information technology were most in demand, with 40 percent of vacancies for software engineers and web developers. Operation positions, such as account management and customer support, accounted for 23 percent, designers for 14 percent, marketing for 13 percent, and sales for 10 percent.
The hottest
product category was e- commerce, followed by marketing and financial technology.
And with the e-commerce trend, a new wave of job ad language has also arrived.
According to the research, 84 companies were looking for tech “gurus”, 13 were trying to find “wizards”, while the search was also on for “legends, ninjas, superheroes and rockstars”.
“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 profitable companies emerging with a need for top talent and the financial clout to take on big tech companies,” Puliatti said.
The Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry said it was not surprised to learn that the city was leading the way in start-ups and technical recruiting.
Chamber president Janine Myburgh said: “We have four universities in the Western Cape offering some of the best technical education in the country, so it is not surprising that technical recruiters would home in on Cape Town.”
She said the city had also been able to attract technology and software companies because of projects like Silicon Cape “and because Cape Town is such a great place to live”.
“It is an ideal place to start a new business, especially in technical fields.”
Myburgh said the city had a reputation for innovation.
“The chamber and Absa run a competition for exporters every year, and every year the judges are amazed by the inventiveness and enterprise displayed by the entrants. There is no doubt that we have a culture of entrepreneurship.”
Adzuna’s research placed e-commerce start-up Zando, an online clothing and accessories business founded just over a year ago, as the top hiring company with 15 vacancies.
Zando’s managing director, Sascha Breuss, said the vacancies were due to “pure growth”.
“Since opening 20 months ago, we have seen double-digit growth month on month. There is high potential in online shopping, and we are trying to find the best IT and online talent in South Africa.”
Eight of the top 10 companies are based in Cape Town, one in Stellenbosch and one in Joburg.
While some of the companies in the top 10 do not fall into the recent start-up category as they have been operating for more than five years, Puliatti said the start- ups began building around these digital tech companies, which had based themselves in Cape Town.