🌍 Africa is the world’s fastest-growing continent for software developers

As tech ecosystems and hubs continue to sprout across Africa, an accompanying effect has been an a big increase in local software engineering talent.  So big in fact, that Microsoft is investing over $100 million to open its first development centers on the continent and employ 100 full-time African developers this year and grow its developer pool to 500 by 2023.

And the developer boom is showing no signs of slowing down. In GitHub’s latest annual State of the Octoverse report, developers from Africa created 40% more open source repositories on the software engineering marketplace over the past year—a higher growth percentage than any other continent globally. Among African countries with established developer communities, Morocco accounted for the most growth on the continent.

With hundreds of junior developers now on the market, one big question among industry insiders has been whether local tech ecosystems are large enough to absorb them. For their part, these developers have several options, from working remotely for foreign companies and platforms to moving to Europe as several Nigerian developers increasingly have. And if they choose to move elsewhere in Africa, South Africa, which ranks highest for pay packages offered to developers, will likely be top of the list.