AWS Developer Salary Trends in South Africa

16 October 2023, by Josh Nel

You can now earn R10k/€1337 for helping companies grow their tech teams with OfferZen! Refer someone now (logged in OZ users) or find out more!

AWS remains the most-used cloud platform in South Africa. Here, we’ll look at the average AWS developer salaries by experience and how they compare to the next most-used cloud platforms in South Africa; second-place Azure and third-placed Google Cloud Platform.

OfferZen_AWS-Developer-Salary-Trends-in-South-Africa_inner-article

Entry-level and junior AWS developer salary trends

The average entry-level AWS developer salary starts out at R25 566, 18.3% more than 2022’s average. It also puts them 6.7% and 25.9% ahead of their Azure and GCP counterparts, respectively.

AWS developers can expect a 41.5% salary increase after they’ve been coding for at least two years. Junior AWS developers’ see their average monthly salaries rise to R36 171 . This is 10.8% higher than they earned in 2022 and 13% more than the average for junior Azure developers.

AWS developers can expect the most significant salary increase of their careers once they pass the four year mark. Mid-career AWS developers with at least four years of experience see their salaries increase by 48.3% and gives them an average monthly salary of R53 635.

Why the significant increase at this stage of their careers? While they are still finding their feet in the early stages of their careers, developers tend to change jobs a lot more. This gives them a chance to negotiate a market-related salary higher than the inflationary increases developers can expect if they stay with one company.

Companies hiring developers at these career stages are more inclined to offer what might seem a significant increase because, overall, the salary range still isn’t that high.

As this stage of ther careers, The gap between them and their Azure and GCP counterparts has widened to 22.7% and 26.1%, respectively.

Average AWS Developer Salaries by Experience

Average Salary by Years Experience, showing 25th and 75th percentiles

Years of Experience	25th Percentile	Average	75th Percentile
0-2	R12,500	R25,566	R29,000
2-4	R22,500	R36,171	R42,500
4-6	R37,500	R53,635	R62,500
6-10	R47,500	R71,078	R82,500
10+	R67,500	R91,848	R105,000

Senior AWS developer salary trends

AWS developers see their salary growth slow once they reach the senior level. Why the slow-down? In addition to senior developers generally changing jobs less often than juniors, companies also have to start thinking more about salary increases when developer salary levels become “more expensive”.

That doesn’t mean there’s no growth at all. AWS developers with six to ten years of experience can look forward to a 32.5% increase. This gives them an average salary of R71 078, 4.5% more than 2022’s for developers with this level of experience.

As a result of the slow down in salary growth, the gap between AWS and Azure has narrowed to 15.7%. At the same time, they’ve also seen their advantage over senior GCP developers narrow to 10.6%.

This continues to slow, but the average senior AWS developer salary still increases by an additional 29.2% to R91 848 after they’ve been coding for at least ten years.

As a result, the gap between AWS and Azure has narrowed again to 8.8% for developers with more than ten years of experience. The gap between senior AWS and GCP developers has practically disappeared at this stage, as less than 1.3% separates developers working with the different platforms.

Keep in mind

The data in this article is taken from OfferZen’s 2023 State of the Software Developer Nation Report. In this article, ‘salary’ refers to the gross monthly salary (before tax) provided by more than 4500 survey respondents.

Average salaries are single data points and only one part of a bigger story. It’s expected that many respondents may earn significantly more or less than these averages. However, we hope to provide a picture of underlying trends by mapping the average salaries for different experience levels.

Salaries depend on the industry, individual, perks and nature of work. These factors all influence the salary a company will offer to a prospective hire. In addition, most developers are “fluent” in several languages, which will affect the final figures.

It’s also important to remember that every individual’s context is different. Ultimately, salary is a personal conversation that should take place between employee and employer.

On OfferZen, you can hire AWS developers and find AWS developer jobs.

AWS Developer Salary Trends in South Africa

Entry-level and junior AWS developer salary trends

Average AWS Developer Salaries by Experience

Senior AWS developer salary trends

Keep in mind

Related resources:

Recent posts

Subscribe to our blog