Knowledge and skills production
With many respected educational institutions, Cape Town produces a high number of skilled graduates across all sectors each year.
Our tertiary institutions
We have three universities in our metro with strengths in business, law, IT, engineering, medical sciences and technology:
- University of Cape Town (UCT) – the highest QS World Ranking university in Africa
- University of the Western Cape (UWC)
- Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).
- One just outside of our metro, Stellenbosch University, is the second highest QS World Ranking university in South Africa
Fast fact
UCT is ranked first in Africa (in five separate rankings) and 167th in the world (Times Higher Education 2025), ranked 78th globally for medical and health.
UVU Africa co-launched the Biotech Growth Coalition, positioning Cape Town as a health innovation hub.
We have two globally recognised business schools:
- UCT Graduate School of Business, Financial Times Top 100 MBA
- Stellenbosch Business School
Fast fact
Cape Town's space and engineering sector, exemplified by Simera Sense, a global supplier of satellite imaging cameras, ~R200 million invested over 7 years with 95 employees, reflecting the city's hotbed of engineering and technical expertise.
We have six Western Cape Technical & Vocational Education & Training (TVET) Colleges:
Leader in Science: The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Telescope
SKA is attracting the world’s leading scientists, physicists and engineers. It is a strategic infrastructure project with major opportunities for entrepreneurial ‘scale-ups’ including in the ‘big data’ arena, stated to be a $1 trillion industry by 2020. Business opportunities include manufacturing of components, innovation and maintenance, particularly in Cape Town.
Early indications of traction include a local manufacture that has developed a processor that has reduced the time it takes NASA to conduct a certain deep space exploration process from two years to a month. A Stellenbosch-based software company is now considered the world’s leading developer of optics and receivers owing to the products it developed for the SKA.
The SKA head office is based in Cape Town and is attracting a significant number of PhD-level researchers and scientists. SKA is an anchor tenant for a high-performance computing (big data) facility. See the SKA website.
Invest in the City of Cape Town
Are you interested in investing in our city? Our Economic Development and Investment Department can help you make choices that suit your needs.
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