Data from research group, PayScale, shows which graduates from South Africa’s top universities have gone on to have the highest average salaries.
PayScale uses big data to analyse and present salary data through a variety of metrics – from level of working experience, degrees studied and job fields employees work in.
One of the metrics is salaries based on which universities an employee graduated from.
According to the data, graduates from the Wits University have the highest average salary range (between R145,580 and R861,370) – though it’s the University of Cape Town which has the highest average salary for those with a bachelor’s degree (R348,000).
Meanwhile, graduates from smaller cities – like Durban and Port Elizabeth – have lower salary ranges, with the latter having the lowest average for a bachelor’s degree (R229,790).
The data below is based on over 2,000 data entries from South African graduates. Numbers have been rounded.
| University | Average Low | Average High | Bachelor’s Average |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of the Witwatersrand | R145 580 | R861 370 | R301 910 |
| University of Pretoria | R142 290 | R820 640 | R262 060 |
| University of Cape Town | R141 740 | R765 850 | R348 000 |
| UNISA | R117 420 | R762 070 | R328 220 |
| Stellenbosch University | R142 290 | R725 070 | R260 860 |
| University of Johannesburg | R109 420 | R680 370 | R225 060 |
| Durban University of Technology | R91 110 | R592 550 | R217 200 |
| Nelson Mandela University | R96 310 | R552 680 | R229 790 |
PayScale’s data generally reflects the regional data recently published by jobs portal, CareerJunction, showing how salary ranges differed across South Africa’s three major metro areas.
In the study, salaries in Johannesburg were consistently higher than the national average when compared to Durban and Cape Town.
In the latter two regions, salaries were mainly lower, but also higher depending on the specific industry or sector.
With graduates from any given university typically going on to work in the same are as the university (Wits graduates working in Johannesburg, UCT graduates in Cape Town, etc), it stands to reason that the salary ranges attached to those universities reflects the area they are in.
