With an education system that leaves much to be desired, it’s become increasingly apparent that if you want a decent-paying job in South Africa, you need to have a tertiary qualification.

The type of tertiary qualification you get can clearly influence the type of job that you get, and your level of qualification will affect your salary. While the country’s unemployment rates sit at its highest levels in decades, there is a clear distinction between the unemployment rates across various education levels.

In other words, and depending on what you want out of life, you should choose carefully when selecting your major at university.

BusinessTech looked at the latest data from PayScale to determine which degrees usually result in the best average salaries.

Past salary data, and commentary from countless companies, show that businesses are in desperate need for skills – and are willing to pay big salaries to secure them.

These skill demands tend towards the more technical fields, but throughout the years of salary information being disseminated in the public domain, engineering and finance jobs typically rank as some of the best-paid in the country.

The table below outlines some of the most sought after degrees on the job market at the moment, with average salaries reflecting early and mid-level career figures:

Source: BusinessTech

While companies are constantly looking for skills, it’s important to note that simply having a degree doesn’t guarantee you a job – you need experience as well.

According to Stats SA, of the 6.7 million unemployed persons, 55.9% had education levels below matric, followed by those with matric at 34.7% in the fourth quarter of 2019.

By comparison, only 1.9% of the unemployed persons were graduates while 6.8% had other tertiary qualifications as their highest level of education.

Education is everything.

If you want to give your kids a head start in life, consider securing their futures with an internationally recognised high school education.

If it’s too late to study engineering – welcome to the club.

We’re all very good at budgeting.

[source:businesstech]