South African companies are hunting for these skills

While South Africa’s job market remains volatile, there are a number of skills and professions that companies are actively hunting for.

Pnet’s Job Market Trends Report for 2025 found that from February to March 2025, local hiring activity increased by 4%.

Hiring activity increased by 10% year-on-year compared to March 2024. However, the job market is still smaller than in March 2023, with a 4% decline in recruitment activity to March 2025.

his continued fluctuation in hiring levels underscores the ongoing volatility and uncertainty facing the local job market, which has yet to return to pre-2023 levels of stability.

According to the report, there are several trending jobs that are showing increased demand for workers and professionals.

The first was electrical & electronic equipment installation/repair. This was followed by sales, consulting engineering secretaries, and senior management.

Looking at which job sectors were trending, Pnet found that design, media and arts saw a significant 78% increase in hiring activity year-on-year. From February to March, hiring activity for professionals in this sector increased by 9%.

The year’s first quarter also reflected strong and consistent hiring activity for sales professionals. This sector saw a 41% increase in hiring activity year over year, and month over month, hiring activity for sales professionals increased by 6%.

Additionally, the marketing sector was also trending. Since October 2024, there has been increased hiring activity for marketing staff.

Although February 2025 saw a slight dip, hiring activity for marketing staff remained stable. Year-on-year, this sector has seen an increase of 44%. Month-on-month, hiring activity for marketing staff increased by 7%.

Candidate sourcing trends

Pnet also looked at trends in candidate sourcing to see which professionals are currently in demand. When companies are looking to hire a new employee, they may advertise the position to draw in applications.

However, sometimes companies actively search for potential candidates, especially those who may not be actively seeking new employment, to fill current and future job vacancies. This is known as candidate sourcing.

Only an estimated 12% of candidates are actively searching for a new job, and 13% are casually looking. That means 75% of potential candidates aren’t scanning job ads at all.

By opening the search for new employees up to the passive jobseeker market, recruiters have a much larger chance of finding good potential candidates.

Looking at the targeted candidate sectors where most candidate sourcing happens, Pnet found that some very clear trends emerge.

One out of five companies/recruiters targeted business and management professionals. Finance professionals are second in place, followed by IT professionals, admin, office and support professionals, and sales professionals.

Managerial staff at the department level were in high demand when recruiters sourced and engaged with potential job candidates.

Specifically, managerial job roles like finance managers, sales managers, operations managers, and business development and HR managers were highly sought after.

Middle and department managers were at the top in demand, followed by software developers, which has been a trend for the last few years.

Interestingly, job advertising for IT professionals, particularly software developers, has decreased significantly by 45% over the last three years.

Although candidate sourcing for software developers has decreased, the trend is not as significant. Software developers remained second on the list of top in-demand professionals when it comes to candidate sourcing.

When looking at the top search terms used when recruiters or companies source candidates, financial job roles dominated the top of the list.

Search terms like “accountant,” “bookkeeper,” and “financial manager” were the most popular. ” Sales and project managers were fourth and fifth, respectively.

From a job seeker perspective, Pnet’s research found that software developer profiles were sourced the most frequently.

Considering that professionals with solid experience in software development are scarcer than professionals fit for other job roles, it makes sense that these professionals are more popular when it comes to candidate sourcing.

Second in place are data analysis/data warehousing professionals such as data scientists, data analysts and business intelligence developers and analysts.

Financial accountants are in third place. Data professionals and financial accountants are also less prevalent in the job market and, therefore, more sought-after.

As a result, some of these highly sought-after candidates are sourced by employers and recruiters more than 100 times a year.

In other words, on average, different recruiters and companies might call them about new career opportunities two times every single week.