OUR COMMITMENT TO GROWING DEVELOPERS IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN IT INDUSTRY
Aspire Solutions is committed to a people-centric approach to business and as part of this, helping to train competent young developers, a scarce commodity, in the South African IT industry.
The IT situation in South Africa in general
Two recent articles by Business Tech point to the increased demand for software developers. The first rates the most sought-after skill sets in the local market as:
1. Software Development
2. Middle / Department Management
3. Representative / Sales Consulting
Business Tech notes that “recruitment for developers and programmers can be challenging due to the competition for experienced and senior roles in this field.” It cites increased demand for software developers, network and systems engineers, ICT systems analysts, programmer analysts, ICT security specialists and business analysts.
What has caused the current scarcity?
While developers and systems analysts have regularly been in short supply, the current demand has been triggered by two factors – the pandemic and the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
Lockdown forced retail outlets to close their doors or curtail their hours, while also causing retrenchments in many sectors. This unexpectedly left many wanting to either sell or buy, and developers with ecommerce skills were soon overwhelmed. The Facebook group “Insaka eCommerce Community” quickly swelled to over 27 000 members.
Meanwhile The Internet of Things, 4IR and the burgeoning Metaverse are creating jobs in many sectors. The South African government aims at training one million young people by 2030 in robotics, artificial intelligence, coding, cloud computing and networking.
As a company, we are here to play our part in this.

Growth areas
With ever-cheaper data and increased speed and bandwidth, opportunities are abundant in the mobile and cloud-computing sectors. South Africa is a leader in mobile technology on the African continent and the demand for apps is unceasing. ICASA’s annual “State of the ICT Sector” report shows revenue and usage of voice services declining year on year, while data usage is rising fast. Likewise, smart-phone usage is climbing while “brick” phone usage is falling off.
What does it all mean?
The 2021 “ICT Skills Survey” carried out by Wits University’s Joburg Centre for Software Engineering (JCSE) found there remains a chronic shortage of all types of ICT skills required to help local organisations succeed in the digital economy. The report indicated the programming languages most in demand were .NET, C#, C++, Java and VB.
As an increasingly important contributor to South Africa’s GDP, the country’s ICT and electronics sector is well positioned for exponential growth but lacks resources. Training programmes are vital to fill this gap.
The Aspire Academy was specifically set up to ensure that we can offer inhouse training to young programmers instead of relying on others to do this for us. We are invested in the fresh minds we bring through our programme and are proud to be playing a part in the positive change in their lives and so also the development of the IT industry in South Africa.