One of the hottest topics in developer land is salaries. Tunga uncovers the latest salaries for Africa's top 17 software development countries. Please read all about it in our latest blog.
Previously, the Tunga blog featured an article about the best African countries to source developers. For our clients, remuneration is only part of that picture. But for the individual coder, money matters. So we decided to delve deeper into the salary levels for African developers — whether you're starting as a coder or are already well-established, you should have a good idea about what a reasonable salary is.
How much do African coders make?
South Africa takes the cake with an average salary of €1,911/month — almost double that of #2 Morocco (€1,018). Kenyans follow at €788, with Nigeria (€586) and Uganda (€568) halfway down the table and Ethiopia at the bottom (€194).
For high earners: South Africa tops at €3,287, followed by Morocco (€2,210) and Zimbabwe (€1,742). The spread between average and high salaries varies significantly — Nigerian coders with the biggest paychecks earn 2.5 times the national average, reflecting dynamic market growth.
Cost of living
Senegal leads the cost-of-living index at 1.18 relative to South Africa, followed by Ivory Coast (1.17). Nigeria is close to South Africa at 0.98, while Algeria (0.54), Tunisia (0.56), and Egypt (0.57) are the most affordable. At the capital level, Lagos (1.26) is the most expensive relative to Johannesburg, while Kampala (0.71) and Cairo (0.61) are the most affordable.
Adjusted salaries: purchasing power perspective
When adjusting salaries for cost of living, North African countries emerge as the most attractive for developers due to relatively high salaries and low costs. The least attractive countries for coders are in West Africa, with Ethiopia at the bottom. The prime locations for high-end developers are Morocco and Kenya.
Methodology
Our article focused on the 17 best African countries to source developers. We used a wide range of publicly available sources including Glassdoor, Paylab, Payscale, Salary Explorer, Average Salary Survey, TechJaja, and Mywage. For cost of living data, we used Numbeo, indexed against South Africa as benchmark since it has the highest developer salaries.
