What a market related salary really looks like in South Africa

One of the most common reasons a good hire slips away is the offer. Pitch it too low and the strongest candidate declines or takes a counter offer. Pitch it too high and you overspend and distort your own pay structure. As recruiters working across KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Western Cape, we see both play out every week, and the fix is knowing what market related pay actually looks like right now for the role you are filling.

What market related actually means

A market related salary is what a skilled person who meets your requirements can realistically command in the current market, given the demand for their skills, your location and how scarce that talent is. It is not last year's figure, and it is not the national average. For scarce skills in finance, IT and engineering, the real number is often higher than employers expect, because those candidates usually have more than one option.

Why pay differs across South Africa

Pay is not the same across the country. Gauteng often leads on salary, while coastal regions such as KZN can sit a little lower for the same role. The exception is scarce, specialist skills, where demand closes that gap quickly. Benchmarking against your specific region and role, rather than a single national figure, keeps your offer both competitive and fair. Pnet's 2026 salary guide, built from thousands of vacancies posted on its platform, shows the same pattern nationally: executive and senior leadership roles carry the highest cost to company packages, with finance, engineering and technology close behind. The exact figure for any single role still moves with demand and location, which is why benchmarking against live vacancies, not a generic salary table, is what actually protects an offer.

The cost of getting it wrong

• Too low. The best candidates quietly decline, or accept and keep looking, and you are hiring again within months.
• Too high. You win the hire but unbalance your structure and set a precedent that is hard to walk back.
• Unclear. A vague or slow offer invites a counter offer from their current employer, which is where many strong candidates are lost.

A pattern we see often

We regularly see strong candidates decline offers for the same reason. They have marked a clear salary expectation early in the process, and the offer that comes back sits well below both that expectation and what their skill set is genuinely worth in the current market.

The candidates say no, and they say why. They know their market value, and an offer that undercuts it does not land, whatever the reasoning behind it. This shows up in a few familiar forms: an offer below current earnings, a token increase dressed up as a market related figure, or pushback on a candidate's expectation that does not hold up once you check what the market is actually paying. None of it changes the number the market has set. You cannot negotiate a candidate down to a figure the market has already moved past, you can only lose them to whoever is willing to pay it.

A related tactic is offering to revise salary after three months, often framed as a probation period or a chance to prove fit. It rarely works the way it is intended. Most candidates would rather see a fair number from day one than wait on a future review, and a below market starting offer is a common reason good candidates walk away, even when the role itself is a strong fit.

It is not only the number

Candidates weigh the whole package. Benefits, flexibility, growth, stability and the manager they will report to all carry real weight, and a strong total offer can win a candidate even when the base is not the highest on the table. Knowing which levers matter to a particular person is often the difference between a yes and a no.

Remember, you are selling too

Hiring is rarely one sided in a market this tight. Strong candidates are usually weighing more than one offer, and the number is only part of that decision. The employers who win the best candidates are the ones who make a clear case for why this role, this team and this company are worth choosing, not just the ones with the highest figure. Selling your value proposition — the growth on offer, the team, the stability and the way people are treated — matters as much as getting the number right.

Much of this is simply the market shifting. Pay structures and offer tactics that worked when employers held more leverage do not carry the same weight today, and the businesses adapting fastest, without losing what makes them a genuinely good place to work, are the ones securing the hires everyone else is competing for.