The AI Advantage: South Africa’s Job Market Is Rewarding Digital Skills
Hiring is picking up, remote work is edging back, and people who work well with AI are getting more options. At LeanTechnovations, we help teams embed practical AI skills into day‑to‑day workflows, turning curiosity about AI into measurable improvements in speed, quality and cost. If you have invested time in learning how to use AI and data at work, the market is starting to meet you halfway. South Africa’s hiring activity is up compared to last year, and recruiters are actively seeking candidates with the right skills. That is not guesswork. It is what the latest Pnet Job Market Trends data shows for September 2025. The shift, in simple terms Pnet reports that overall hiring activity rose 7% year on year and 6% month on month. That lift came from two places. Employers posted more vacancies, and recruiters increased their database searches for specific skills. In other words, companies are both advertising and headhunting, which is a valuable sign of confidence. Flexibility is also returning. After two years of decline, the share of remote roles grew for six months in a row from March to September 2025. Remote and hybrid listings now make up about 3.6% of all vacancies. It is a small base, but the direction is positive for professionals who need location flexibility or who live outside major metros. There is good news for AI skills, too. Reporting on Pnet’s data, MyBroadband notes that the number of AI professionals placed in new roles nearly doubled, up 96% between late 2019 or early 2020 and late 2024 or early 2025. AI-related job postings increased by 183% between early 2018 and early 2024. Most hires are still in IT at about 62%, with education around 10%, and the rest spread across finance, consulting, and telecoms. What that means for real jobs The roles seeing the most remote traction are not only developers. Pnet’s list of top remote roles includes Data Analyst (12% of roles advertised as remote), Business Analyst (9%), Business Developer (8%), Personal Assistant (12%), and Client or Customer Support Agent (11%). These are practical, everyday jobs where AI and digital tools help with tasks such as data cleanup, reporting, summarising, scheduling, and service triage. There is some balancing detail in tech. As overall demand shifts, a few IT roles show fewer remote options than before. Systems or Network Administrator, Software Developer, and IT Project Administrator or Manager are the clearest examples. IT still dominates remote work overall, but flexibility is spreading into business, admin, and finance, while some tech niches are tightening on location needs. Jobseekers Start with your craft, then add practical AI. You do not need to be a machine learning engineer to benefit. Focus on the tasks you already do and look for simple, safe ways to use AI to help. Examples include pulling a clean first draft, checking for errors, summarising research, creating a clear checklist, or building a small data workflow that saves time. The roles gaining remote options are precisely the ones where these skills show up in day-to-day work. Show outcomes, not tool names. Recruiters are searching databases more often, which means precise results matter. In your CV and interviews, use short stories about time saved, error rates reduced, or response times improved. That is the kind of signal that gets noticed when teams are hiring with purpose. Team Leaders The winning move is to build capability inside your current team. Hire for learning ability and curiosity, then teach people how to use AI safely and usefully in their real work. Follow with a short strategy sprint that maps one process end-to-end, tests where AI actually adds value and measures the result. Scale what works and write it into standard operating procedures so the gains stick. This is the simple model we use with clients. Learn the basics, find the right fit, then implement for outcomes. Explore a Lean approach, as Lean focuses on delivering value with less waste. AI helps by making the work visible, faster to standardise and easier to improve. It can surface bottlenecks in a value stream, draft clear standard work, and cut rework by catching errors early. The result is time back for people to solve better problems and serve customers faster. AI does not replace Lean. It powers it with better visibility, faster learning and fewer repeat mistakes. Where to focus first? Well, Pnet shows stable demand in Business and Management and growing flexibility in Finance and Admin or Support. These areas are ideal for early wins because the processes are repeatable and close to customers or cash. Think reconciliations, weekly reporting, service inboxes, onboarding checklists, and knowledge retrieval. These are perfect places to try minor, well-governed AI improvements with clear metrics. A short starter plan Teach the basics. Give people a safe, hands-on introduction to AI that uses their real tasks. Cover good prompts, how to check outputs, and how to protect data. Keep it practical and short. Run one value sprint. Pick a process that hurts. Map it, remove obvious friction, and test one or two small automations—track time saved and quality. Scale and standardise. Bake the better workflow into your tools and ways of working. Support the change with coaching and simple dashboards. Work in South Africa is not becoming less human. It is becoming more digital and more outcome-focused. When people combine their craft with practical AI skills, they get more choice and more stability. When teams build those skills and design work around them, they move faster and serve customers better—the data points in the same direction. Hiring is up, and remote work is recovering slowly. The opportunity is to turn that momentum into everyday practice. If you want a quick, practical view of where your organisation stands, take our AI Readiness Assessment: https://aireadiness2.scoreapp.com/ Sources: Pnet. 2025. Job Market Trends Report. October 2025. Pages 3 to 10 Vermeulen, J. 2025. Good news for people with AI skills in South Africa. MyBroadband, 21 April 2025. MyBroadband Categories – AI Adoption, Artificial Intelligence,