What Learnerships & Internships Actually Pay in South Africa

Adverts rarely tell you whether a stipend is generous or stingy. These benchmarks are calculated by SetaJobs from every live learnership, internship and apprenticeship on the site that publishes what it pays, so you can see where an offer sits before you spend a day applying for it.

The headline figure, July 2026

Across the 48 live learnerships, internships and apprenticeships currently advertising a stipend on SetaJobs, the median is R6 250 a month. Half of all programmes pay between R5 188 and R7 750, and nine in ten fall between R4 303 and R9 650.

Median: R6 250
25th percentile: R5 188
75th percentile: R7 750
Listings measured: 48

A further 6 live listings mention a stipend without publishing a rand figure (most often a full bursary), and are excluded.

By opportunity type

Programme types differ mainly in the qualification they ask for, and pay tends to follow that. Across the groups large enough to measure right now, Internship pays the most — a median of R8 125 a month, 1.5x what Learnership pays (R5 500).

Group	Median	Middle 50%	Listings
Learnership	R5 500	R5 000 – R6 250	29
Internship	R8 125	R7 938 – R9 000	12
Apprenticeship	R6 250	R6 000 – R6 375	7

By province

Where a programme is based matters, largely through which employers run programmes there. Across the groups large enough to measure right now, Gauteng pays the most — a median of R7 000 a month, 1.4x what Western Cape pays (R5 125).

Group	Median	Middle 50%	Listings
Gauteng	R7 000	R5 938 – R8 063	16
Western Cape	R5 125	R5 000 – R6 188	6
KwaZulu-Natal	R6 375	R5 875 – R7 438	6

By NQF level

The NQF level is the qualification a programme is pitched at. Across the groups large enough to measure right now, NQF Level 7 pays the most — a median of R9 000 a month, 1.8x what NQF Level 3 pays (R5 000).

Group	Median	Middle 50%	Listings
NQF Level 4	R5 750	R5 000 – R6 250	21
NQF Level 5	R6 250	R6 000 – R6 450	7
NQF Level 7	R9 000	R8 250 – R9 750	6
NQF Level 6	R7 875	R7 750 – R8 188	6
NQF Level 3	R5 000	R4 500 – R7 000	5

How these figures are calculated

The population is every learnership, internship and apprenticeship on SetaJobs that is published, still open, and states what it pays — 48 of the 54 such programmes that mention a stipend at all. Permanent and contract posts are excluded: they advertise a salary rather than a stipend, and including them pulled the upper figures far above anything a programme actually pays.
Where an advert quotes a range (“R6 000 – R7 000”), the midpoint is used. Amounts quoted per week or per year are converted to a monthly equivalent; hourly rates are converted at 160 hours a month.
Full bursaries and tuition-only awards are excluded — they are real benefits, but they are not a monthly cash stipend and averaging them in would distort every figure on this page.
A group is only published once it contains at least 5 listings. Smaller groups are left out rather than shown with a median that a single advert could swing.
Quoted ranges trim the top and bottom 5% of each group. A handful of adverts state an annual salary on a listing recorded as an internship; without trimming, one of those would set the headline range for every programme on the page.
Figures move as listings open and close, and are refreshed hourly. They describe what is advertised on this site, which is a large sample of the SA market but not all of it.