Affordable outsourcing options for global companies.
Africa's software development sector has been growing rapidly in recent years, with several countries emerging as leaders in providing affordable outsourcing options for businesses. Sub-Saharan African countries like South Africa, Kenya, and Mauritius have been front-runners in attracting foreign companies looking to outsource software development. Meanwhile, Nigeria has been identified as an emerging powerhouse, and Egypt's position is similar, having a large talent pool and moderate salary levels.
Various talent outsourcers have a pool of developers from over 24 African countries on its platform, with most of the programmers it works with located in Nigeria, Uganda, Egypt, and Kenya. The company pays developers €13.50 an hour, making it an affordable option for businesses looking to outsource their software development needs. However, it is worth noting that pricing and availability of programmers vary greatly from country to country, with some countries more competitive than others.
For example, South Africa has the largest talent pool in terms of the absolute number of developers, but it is not particularly competitive on pricing, even compared with non-African markets like Ukraine and India. On the other hand, Mauritius, Morocco, Tunisia, and Kenya are particularly attractive for sourcing programmers due to a combination of factors such as the tech business climate, number of developers per capita, and good language skills (English for the sub-Saharan countries, French for North African markets).
Ghana and Uganda are also showing as "promising outsiders," with substantial developer populations, good English proficiency, and moderate salary levels. This highlights the fact that there are opportunities for businesses to source affordable software development talent beyond the traditional African outsourcing hubs.
In terms of the skills of African software developers, developers throughout Africa have a grounding in the most popular programming languages and frameworks. However, there are gaps in some of the more specialized frameworks.
As more Western companies discover Africa as an outsourcing destination, there will be greater pressure on the continent to grow its talent pool. This presents an opportunity for African youth who want to enter the software development job market. Spruyt advises learning one to three of the popular programming frameworks and starting to build a portfolio, which can be achieved by joining open-source projects.
The growth of Africa's software development sector is expected to continue as more businesses turn to outsourcing to meet their software development needs. In terms of market demand, Spruyt predicts that the bottleneck will be more on the sourcing side in Africa than on the demand side. This means that there is room for more African talent to enter the market and for businesses to benefit from affordable outsourcing options.