Reading an article today on Fin24 which headlined, “UK hunts SA financial skills” got me thinkig about what is actually happening in terms of skills of people working in the South Africa financial sector.

I for one know quite a number of people working in the SA financial sector and not too many of them are thinking of leaving SA in this moment in time. Consider this, there are quite a number of financial professionals who left Zimbabwe to come and work in SA and hold very key positions in major companies in SA. It is this group of professionals that may opt to stay in SA but what about the South African professionals who want to leave SA and go work in the UK? South Africa always come out and say that there is a skills shortage in key sectors in SA, financial sector being one of them. Is the SA government doing enough to retain their key skills in this sector?

From the Fin24 article, i gathered that companies in the UK are actually ‘head hunting’ financial professionals from SA and wanting them to come work in the UK and they are being offered salaries in the region of 60% more than they would earn in SA.

The reasons they may want to do that: Obviously the money they will be paid will be much greater than what they would get in SA, thats taking their potential salary in the UK and exchanging it at the current rate of about 14 to get the rand value. But as many readers may agree, the cost of living in the UK especially in a place like London would take up a huge chunk of your earnings. Another reason to want to go to the UK maybe to get exposure to newer markets and learn and network with new people, great opportunity to broaden your horizons.

Now the question to all you financial professionals out there in SA, would you go work in the UK and for those in the UK, would you come and work in SA?

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