A person working as Software Test Engineer in South Africa typically earns around 26,000 ZAR. Salaries range from 13,500 ZAR (lowest) to 39,700 ZAR (highest).
This is the average salary including housing, transport, and other benefits. Software Test Engineer salaries in South Africa vary drastically based on experience, skills, gender, or location. Below you will find a detailed breakdown based on many different criteria.
![]() 13,500 ZAR |
![]() 23,600 ZAR |
![]() 39,700 ZAR |
Salaries for the position Software Test Engineer in South Africa range from 13,500 ZAR (starting salary) to 39,700 ZAR (maximum salary). It should be noted that the given figure is not the legally mandated minimum wage; rather, it represents the lowest figure reported in a salary survey that included thousands of participants and professionals from all regions of the country.
With a median salary of 23,600 ZAR, half of the professionals who work as Software Test Engineer in South Africa earn less than this amount, and the other half earn more. The median salary denotes the middle value of salaries. Ideally, you would want to belong to the group earning more than the median salary, located on the right side of the salary distribution graph.
The median is closely associated with two other values known as the 25th and 75th percentiles. By examining the salary distribution chart, it can be determined that 25% of professionals employed as Software Test Engineer in South Africa earn less than 19,600 ZAR, while 75% earn more. Similarly, the chart shows that 75% earn less than 26,800 ZAR while 25% earn more.
To provide a better understanding of expected salaries, we categorized the frequently occurring salaries into different ranges. This approach provides a more precise representation of salary distribution for the job title Software Test Engineer in South Africa compared to simply calculating the average. The majority of reported salaries, approximately 65%, fall within the range of 15,300 ZAR to 21,000 ZAR. About 20% of salaries are below the 15,300 ZAR mark, while 10% fall within the range of 21,000 ZAR to 23,500 ZAR. Only 5% of individuals have salaries exceeding 23,500 ZAR.
0 - 2 Years | 15,300 ZAR | |
2 - 5 Years | +34% | 20,600 ZAR |
5 - 10 Years | +30% | 26,800 ZAR |
10 - 15 Years | +21% | 32,400 ZAR |
15 - 20 Years | +9% | 35,400 ZAR |
20+ Years | +5% | 37,300 ZAR |
The experience level is the most important factor in determining the salary. Naturally, the more years of experience the higher the wage. We broke down salaries by experience level for people working as Software Test Engineer and this is what we found.
Employees with less than two years of experience earn approximately 15,300 ZAR.
While someone with an experience level between two and five years is expected to earn 20,600 ZAR, 34% more than someone with less than two year's experience.
Moving forward, an experience level between five and ten years lands a salary of 26,800 ZAR, 30% more than someone with two to five years of experience.
Additionally, professionals whose expertise span anywhere between ten and fifteen years get a salary equivalent to 32,400 ZAR, 21% more than someone with five to ten years of experience.
If the experience level is between fifteen and twenty years, then the expected wage is 35,400 ZAR, 9% more than someone with ten to fifteen years of experience.
Lastly, employees with more than twenty years of professional experience get a salary of 37,300 ZAR, 5% more than people with fifteen to twenty years of experience.
Certificate or Diploma | 18,200 ZAR | |
Bachelor's Degree | +52% | 27,700 ZAR |
Master's Degree | +42% | 39,200 ZAR |
We all know that higher education equals a bigger salary, but how much more money can a degree add to your income? We broke down salaries by education level for the position Software Test Engineer in order to make a comparison.
Employees at this education level have an average salary of 18,200 ZAR.
At this level, the average salary becomes 27,700 ZAR, 52% more than the previous level.
At this level, the average salary becomes 39,200 ZAR, 42% more than the previous level.
A Master's degree program or any post-graduate program in South Africa costs anywhere from 156,000 ZAR to 469,000 ZAR and lasts approximately two years. That is quite an investment.
You can't really expect any salary increases during the study period, assuming you already have a job. In most cases, a salary review is conducted once education is completed and the degree has been attained.
Many people pursue higher education as a tactic to switch to a higher-paying job. The numbers seem to support the theory. The average increase in compensation while changing jobs is approximately 10% more than the customary salary increment.
If you can afford the costs of higher education, the return on investment is definitely worth it. You should be able to recover the costs in roughly a year or so.
Though gender should not have an effect on pay, in reality, it does. So who gets paid more: men or women? For the people who work as Software Test Engineer in South Africa, the average difference between the salary of male and female employees is 8%.
Male | 27,100 ZAR | |
Female | -7% | 25,200 ZAR |
Individuals working as Software Test Engineer in South Africa are likely to observe a salary increase of approximately 10% every 19 months. The national average annual increment for all professions combined is 8% granted to employees every 18 months.
The term Annual Salary Increase usually refers to the increase in 12 calendar month period, but because it is rare that people get their salaries reviewed exactly on the one-year mark, it is more meaningful to know the frequency and the rate at the time of the increase.
The annual salary Increase in a calendar year (12 months) can be easily calculated as follows: Annual Salary Increase = Increase Rate x 12 / Increase Frequency
Not all compensation increases are reflected directly in the salary. Some companies offer upgraded packages to their staff instead of cash money. The figures displayed here account only for direct increments to the base salary.
48% of surveyed staff reported that they haven't received any bonuses or incentives in the previous year while 52% said that they received at least one form of monetary bonus.
Those who got bonuses reported rates ranging from 3% to 5% of their annual salary.
Received Bonus | 52% | |
No Bonus | 48% |
The most standard form of bonus, where the employee is awarded based on their exceptional performance.
Company Performance BonusesOccasionally, some companies like to celebrate excess earnings and profits with their staff collectively in the form of bonuses that are granted to everyone. The amount of the bonus will probably be different from person to person depending on their role within the organization.
Goal-Based BonusesGranted upon achieving an important goal or milestone.
Holiday / End of Year BonusesThese types of bonuses are given without a reason and usually resemble an appreciation token.
People tend to confuse bonuses with commissions. A commission is a prefixed rate at which someone gets paid for items sold or deals completed while a bonus is in most cases arbitrary and unplanned.
The main two types of jobs | |
Revenue Generators | Supporting Cast |
Employees that are directly involved in generating revenue or profit for the organization. Their field of expertise usually matches the type of business. | Employees that support and facilitate the work of revenue generators. Their expertise is usually different from that of the core business operations. |
Example: | Example: |
Revenue generators usually get more and higher bonuses, higher salaries, and more frequent salary increments. The reason is quite simple: it is easier to quantify your value to the company in monetary terms when you participate in revenue generation.
Top management personnel and senior employees naturally exhibit higher bonus rates and frequencies than juniors. This is very predictable due to the inherent responsibilities of being higher in the hierarchy. People in top positions can easily get double or triple bonus rates than employees down the pyramid.
The hourly wage is the salary paid in one worked hour. Usually, jobs are classified into two categories: salaried jobs and hourly jobs. Salaried jobs pay a fixed amount regardless of the hours worked. Hourly jobs pay per worked hour. To convert salary into hourly wage the above formula is used (assuming 5 working days in a week and 8 working hours per day which is the standard for most jobs). The hourly wage calculation may differ slightly depending on the worked hours per week and the annual vacation allowance. The figures mentioned above are good approximations and are considered to be the standard. One major difference between salaried employees and hourly paid employees is overtime eligibility. Salaried employees are usually exempt from overtime as opposed to hourly paid staff.
The minimum pay rate per hour for people working as Software Test Engineer in South Africa is 78 ZAR. This is the minimum as per the gathered data in the salary survey not the minimum hourly rate mandated by law.
Job Title | Average Salary |
Information Technology | ![]() | |
ABAP Developer | 27,700 ZAR | ![]() |
Android Developer | 32,300 ZAR | ![]() |
Angular Developer | 29,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Angular JS Programmer | 29,200 ZAR | ![]() |
Application Developer | 31,900 ZAR | ![]() |
AS400 Programmer | 33,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Assembly Developer | 34,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Avaloq Developer | 30,100 ZAR | ![]() |
Back End Developer | 30,500 ZAR | ![]() |
BizTalk Developer | 34,200 ZAR | ![]() |
Build and Release Engineer | 30,000 ZAR | ![]() |
Business Intelligence Developer | 32,500 ZAR | ![]() |
Business Objects Developer | 28,300 ZAR | ![]() |
C Developer | 35,600 ZAR | ![]() |
C# Developer | 34,900 ZAR | ![]() |
C++ Developer | 35,200 ZAR | ![]() |
Chatbot Developer | 29,800 ZAR | ![]() |
Clojure Developer | 37,300 ZAR | ![]() |
CMS Developer | 25,500 ZAR | ![]() |
Computer Programmer | 30,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Curam Developer | 26,900 ZAR | ![]() |
Dart Developer | 24,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Delphi Developer | 32,100 ZAR | ![]() |
Developer / Programmer | 32,700 ZAR | ![]() |
Developer Evangelist | 30,600 ZAR | ![]() |
DevOps Engineer | 30,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Django Specialist | 30,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Driver Developer | 34,500 ZAR | ![]() |
Elixir Developer | 38,700 ZAR | ![]() |
Embedded Software Developer | 34,500 ZAR | ![]() |
Erlang Developer | 39,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Flash Developer | 28,100 ZAR | ![]() |
Front End Developer | 27,900 ZAR | ![]() |
Front End Web Developer | 27,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Full Stack Developer | 32,900 ZAR | ![]() |
Game Developer | 29,600 ZAR | ![]() |
GIS Developer | 32,000 ZAR | ![]() |
Go Developer | 37,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Graphical User Interface ( GUI ) Programmer | 28,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Graphics Programmer | 29,000 ZAR | ![]() |
Groovy Developer | 34,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Haskell Developer | 32,800 ZAR | ![]() |
Imaging Programmer | 28,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Information Systems Developer | 28,200 ZAR | ![]() |
IOS Developer | 34,200 ZAR | ![]() |
Java Developer | 35,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Javascript Developer | 31,800 ZAR | ![]() |
jQuery Specialist | 29,800 ZAR | ![]() |
Kotlin Developer | 34,200 ZAR | ![]() |
Laravel Specialist | 28,500 ZAR | ![]() |
Lead Developer | 35,100 ZAR | ![]() |
Lisp Developer | 39,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Lua Developer | 36,200 ZAR | ![]() |
MATLAB Developer | 33,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Mobile Developer | 30,800 ZAR | ![]() |
Multimedia Developer | 28,700 ZAR | ![]() |
NextJs Specialist | 31,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Nodejs Developer | 32,800 ZAR | ![]() |
Objective-C Developer | 38,500 ZAR | ![]() |
Oracle Developer | 32,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Perl Developer | 27,800 ZAR | ![]() |
PHP Developer | 29,100 ZAR | ![]() |
PowerShell Developer | 30,200 ZAR | ![]() |
Python Developer | 33,900 ZAR | ![]() |
R Language Developer | 34,300 ZAR | ![]() |
React Specialist | 32,700 ZAR | ![]() |
Remedy Developer | 24,800 ZAR | ![]() |
Robotic Process Automation Developer | 25,800 ZAR | ![]() |
Ruby Developer | 28,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Rust Developer | 37,800 ZAR | ![]() |
Salesforce Developer | 25,800 ZAR | ![]() |
SAS Programmer | 29,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Scala Developer | 39,800 ZAR | ![]() |
Sharepoint Developer | 32,100 ZAR | ![]() |
Software Developer | 31,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Software Development Manager | 39,500 ZAR | ![]() |
Software QA Engineer | 27,500 ZAR | ![]() |
Software Test Engineer | 26,000 ZAR | ![]() |
Swift Developer | 36,600 ZAR | ![]() |
Teradata Developer | 26,200 ZAR | ![]() |
TIBCO Developer | 27,500 ZAR | ![]() |
TypeScript Developer | 35,600 ZAR | ![]() |
UI Engineer | 28,900 ZAR | ![]() |
User Experience Designer | 27,100 ZAR | ![]() |
VB Developer | 25,400 ZAR | ![]() |
VB.NET Developer | 33,500 ZAR | ![]() |
Visual Basic Developer | 23,600 ZAR | ![]() |
VueJs Specialist | 30,500 ZAR | ![]() |
WordPress Specialist | 31,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Zig Developer | 41,400 ZAR | ![]() |
Where can you get paid more, working in a private company or the government? The difference between the public or government sector salaries and the private sector salaries in South Africa is 7% on average across all career fields.
Private Sector | 30,400 ZAR | |
Public Sector | +7% | 32,400 ZAR |
A good and competitive compensation would range anywhere between 23,600 ZAR and 26,800 ZAR. This is a very rough estimate. Experience and education play a very huge part in the final earnings.
All salary and compensation figures displayed here are gross salary figures, that is the salary before tax deductions. Because taxes may differ across sectors and locations, it is difficult to accurately calculate the net salary after tax for every career.
The base salary for a careers like Software Test Engineer in South Africa ranges from 13,500 ZAR to 19,600 ZAR. The base salary depends on many factors including experience and education. It is not easy to provide a figure with very little information, so take this range with a grain of salt.
Both are indicators. If your salary is higher than both the average and the median then you are doing very well. If your salary is lower than both, then many people earn more than you and there is plenty of room for improvement. If your wage is between the average and the median, then things can be a bit complicated. We wrote a guide to explain all about the different scenarios. How to compare your salary