Demand for AI professionals has been steady and sustained.
Companies globally are fiercely competing for top artificial intelligence (AI) talent, offering premium salaries to attract experienced AI professionals.
Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai brushed off concerns about the company’s ability to attract and keep top AI talent.
Speaking during the tech giant’s second quarter earnings announcement, he acknowledged there is a skills war, with big tech brands like Meta relentlessly recruiting and actively poaching top AI talent by offering them multimillion-dollar pay packages.
His comments echo the findings of a recent report from a US consulting firm, which revealed that many tech companies are “strategically overpaying” people with AI experience.
Locally, there are early signs that this trend is also making its way to SA’s shores, OfferZen data shows. The developer job marketplace also reveals that companies are competing for a small, experienced talent pool, and junior-level hiring isn’t enough to meet current AI needs.
Further insights from OfferZen outline that developers applying for roles that mention AI tend to have higher salary expectations, and in many cases, companies appear willing to meet them. But it’s not a blanket trend just yet, as the data is still emerging, particularly in newer or niche roles like prompt engineers, where sample sizes are smaller.
Boston Consulting Group’s Nihmal Marrie and Nanda Padayachee have also witnessed a rise in South African businesses offering higher salaries, or incentives to attract employees with AI expertise. But they stress there has not been a sudden spike in this kind of aggressive hiring activity.
“Demand for AI roles has been steady and sustained, driven by deliberate efforts across industries to build AI capabilities. This demand consistently exceeds that for many other technological roles, reflecting the growing centrality of AI in transformation agendas.”
Roles garnering the most attention
Looking at interview requests sent on the OfferZen platform, demand for machine learning engineers is on the rise. According to OfferZen data, interest in data engineers is outpacing demand for data scientists by two to three times.
“This tells us that companies are following a clear playbook – build the data infrastructure first, then scale advanced analytics. Additionally, AI-related keywords are showing up across other roles like backend, product, DevOps and design roles,” it says.
Boston Consulting Group’s Nihmal Marrie.
Industries fighting for top AI talent
While OfferZen’s data doesn’t break hiring activity down by industry, based on the roles and skills in demand, it can be seen that tech product companies, enterprise software-as-a-service, fintech firms and e-commerce/consumer platforms are making a significant play for AI expertise.
Within the fintech space, high baseline salaries and strong data teams mean companies are fighting hard for senior talent. Similarly, growing demand for project managers and designers with AI skills points to the industry making big investments in AI-driven user experiences. Banks and telcos are also actively competing for talent in this space.
Given how competitive the market is, Marrie and Padayachee advise that companies look beyond securing top talent and consider what they can do to retain these highly-sought-after individuals once they land them.
“While compensation remains a key lever, many candidates are equally drawn to the opportunity to work on high-impact priorities using cutting-edge technology, and they want to work alongside skilled interdisciplinary teams. Without a deliberate focus on these other factors, the chances of losing AI talent to someone else offering a higher salary and more interesting work increase significantly.”
