South Africa ranks #13 in the world on the EF English Proficiency Index 2025, with a score of 602 and a "Very High" rating. Kenya is #19. Both score higher than every Latin American country in the index. If you are a US CTO who assumed Latin America was the obvious English-friendly choice, that should give you pause.
Then look at the clock. At 9 a.m. in New York, it is mid-afternoon in Lagos, Nairobi, Cairo, and Johannesburg. Your morning is their late shift. Your afternoon is their evening. That one fact shapes the rest of this comparison.
Key Takeaways
- On EF EPI 2025, South Africa (#13), Kenya (#19), and Nigeria (#29) all rank in the Very High or High bands. Egypt (#89) is Low.
- 9 a.m. ET is between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the main African hubs, so overlap is limited to the US morning.
- Latin America sits between UTC-6 and UTC-3, which puts most of the US workday inside normal local hours.
- African developers already work for foreign companies at scale. Remote work from the region is not new.
How the Two Regions Compare
| Factor | Nigeria | Kenya | South Africa | Egypt | Latin America (typical) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UTC offset | +1 | +3 | +2 | +2/+3 (DST) | -6 to -3 |
| 9 a.m. ET is | 2 to 3 p.m. | 4 to 5 p.m. | 3 to 4 p.m. | 4 p.m. | 7 to 11 a.m. |
| EF EPI 2025 | #29 (568, High) | #19 (593, High) | #13 (602, Very High) | #89 (458, Low) | Argentina #26 (575); Brazil #75; Colombia #76; Mexico #103 |
| GitHub accounts, 2026 Q1 | 1.79M | 0.68M | 1.06M | 1.63M | Brazil 8.32M; Mexico 2.87M; Colombia 1.67M |
Time zones are from the IANA time zone database. The account counts are from GitHub's Innovation Graph and count GitHub users, not professional developers. Use them for rough scale only.
On the professional side, the Google and Accenture report on African developers counted about 716,000 professional developers across the continent in 2021, with South Africa and Nigeria the largest markets. It also found that 38% of African developers worked for at least one company based outside the continent. Those figures are a few years old now, but they make the point: US and European teams already hire here, and plenty of engineers in Lagos, Nairobi, and Cape Town know how a distributed team runs.
Andela, which started by hiring its first engineers in Lagos in 2014, now lists talent in 135+ countries. The African remote-engineering model was proven a decade ago.
The Overlap Math
For a team on US Eastern time, a Nairobi engineer working 9 to 6 local overlaps with you from 9 a.m. to about 10 or 11 a.m. ET. A Lagos engineer gets you a little more, roughly 9 a.m. to noon or 1 p.m. ET. For a West Coast team, the overlap with East Africa is close to zero unless someone shifts their hours.
Latin America runs the other way. A Bogota engineer is on the same clock as New York in winter and one hour behind in summer. Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo are one to two hours ahead of Eastern, depending on the season. Most of your day is their day.
Whether that matters depends on how your team works. We make the case in detail in why timezone overlap is the number one remote hiring factor. The short version: senior product engineers spend a lot of time in short loops like code review questions, quick calls, and incident threads. Each loop that has to wait overnight costs a day.
A Concrete Version
A US healthtech startup with its engineering team split between New York and Austin wants a senior engineer to own its patient-scheduling service. Standup is at 10 a.m. ET. Incident review is at 2 p.m. ET on Thursdays.
Candidate A lives in Nairobi. Standup lands at 6 p.m. local in winter. The Thursday review lands at 10 p.m. The engineer could shift to a 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. schedule, and some do this for years without trouble. Others burn out by month four.
Candidate B lives in Medellin. Standup is at 10 a.m. local in winter. The review is at 2 p.m. Nobody shifts anything.
The CTO also has a data pipeline backlog: batch jobs, well-specified tickets, results checked the next morning. For that work, the Nairobi engineer's afternoon, which is the US early morning, is fine. Jobs run while New York wakes up. The CTO ends up hiring in both places, one for each kind of work.
The Honest Counterpoint
If English is your first filter and your team works async, Africa has a strong case. South Africa and Kenya outscore every Latin American market on EF EPI 2025, and Nigeria outscores Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. For a team that writes things down, reviews code asynchronously, and uses the time gap as an overnight handoff, a Lagos or Cape Town engineer can outperform a nearshore hire who struggles in English.
Companies with a European presence should also look hard at Africa. Lagos and Johannesburg overlap almost entirely with London and Berlin. If half your team is in Europe, the math flips in Africa's favor.
And do not treat "Latin America" as one English level. Mexico ranks #103 and Argentina ranks #26. If you pick Latin America for the overlap, screen English in a live call. Compare the two regions against Eastern Europe too, which sits closer to Africa's time zones.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which African countries have the strongest English?
On EF EPI 2025, South Africa (#13, Very High), Kenya (#19, High), and Nigeria (#29, High) score well. Egypt (#89) is in the Low band, so treat it differently.
How much US overlap can I get with African developers?
On a normal 9-to-6 local schedule, East and West African engineers overlap with the US Eastern morning, roughly one to two hours from Nairobi and three to four from Lagos. West Coast teams get little or none without a schedule shift.
Is Latin America or Africa better for a US product team?
For a role that needs to be in live meetings across the US day, Latin America usually wins on overlap. For async work or a team with a European base, Africa is very competitive. See our LATAM vs India comparison for the same trade-off with a larger offshore market.
The Bottom Line
Both regions have strong senior engineers. Africa often wins on English scores. Latin America wins on hours. Decide which one the role needs, then hire for it. If you need engineers inside your US workday, Ruzora sends a vetted shortlist of senior LATAM engineers within 72 hours. See available engineers or read how we vet.
Roberto Espinoza is CEO of Ruzora, which helps US startups hire pre-vetted senior LATAM engineers, with a vetted shortlist in 72 hours. See available engineers.
