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One of the great successes of post-apartheid South Africa has been the increase in the number of black people graduating from university with an engineering degree.

In 1991 there were 4 194 engineering graduates, an estimated 3 470 of whom were white and an estimated 250 were black in the narrow sense of the term.

The ratio in 1991 of white graduates to black graduates was therefore 13.88 white graduates for every one black graduate. However, today, this ratio has changed to 5.82 black graduates for every one white graduate.

The chart below shows how the ratio of black engineering graduates to white engineering graduates has changed.

Over that period there has been a large increase in the overall number of engineering graduates.

The chart below shows this growth.

Of the 13 832 total engineer graduates in 2024, the number of black graduates was 10 848 and 1 863 graduates were white.

The data reveal that South Africa has experienced a profound racial transformation within one of its most skilled professions. The share of black South Africans studying engineering has increased dramatically since the end of apartheid, reflecting the expansion of access to higher education and professional opportunities for black South Africans.

The Rise of the Black Engineering Middle Class

Under apartheid, black people were largely restricted in what they could study.

As apartheid began to crumble in the 1990s these barriers began to fall. Universities expanded engineering programmes, access increased, and growing numbers of black South Africans entered technical fields such as engineering.

This represents more than a change in tertiary education institute demographics. Each engineering graduate entering the workforce represents another household with access to skilled employment, higher lifetime earnings, and greater opportunities for wealth creation.

The growth in black engineering graduates therefore provides strong evidence of the expansion of South Africa’s black middle class since the early 1990s.