OFO Codes — Organising Framework for Occupations (Version 2021)

The Organising Framework for Occupations (OFO) is the official skills-based coded classification of all occupations in the South African labour market. It is published and maintained by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and aligned with the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08). The current version 2021 contains 1,554 occupations grouped into 10 Major Groups, each broken down into Sub-Major Groups, Minor Groups, Unit Groups and individual six-digit occupational codes.

This directory lets you browse the complete OFO structure online. The 10 Major Groups cover managers; professionals; technicians and associate professionals; clerical support workers; service and sales workers; skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers; craft and related trades workers; plant and machine operators and assemblers; elementary occupations; and the armed forces. Each occupation page on the site shows the official OFO code, title and description, the alternative job titles commonly used in South Africa, the related SETA, and links to relevant NQF qualifications and learnerships.

OFO codes are required by every employer who pays the Skills Development Levy. They form the backbone of the Workplace Skills Plan (WSP) and the Annual Training Report (ATR) that must be submitted to your SETA each year, and they are used to identify scarce and critical skills, plan learnerships and apprenticeships, and report on B-BBEE skills development. They are also used by Home Affairs for the Critical Skills List, by SAQA for foreign qualification evaluation, and by Statistics SA for labour-force surveys.

It is important to remember that OFO codes are not the same as SIC codes: SIC describes what a business does, while OFO describes what an employee does. Use this directory to find the correct six-digit code for every position in your organisation, from CEO and software developer to artisan, machine operator and general worker.