Australia's tech workforce grew 8% in 2021

Australia’s technology workforce grew by 8% in 2021, more than doubling the 3.4% growth in the overall workforce, according to ACS Australia’s Digital Pulse 2022.

The report found that over 870,000 Australians are now working in IT roles, and this is predicted to grow to over 1.2 million in the next five years. This would represent an average annual growth rate of 5.5%.

But this means both businesses and governments will have to step up their game to improve the nation’s digital skills pipeline, ACS President Nick Tate said.

“By 2027, Australia will need over 1.2 million IT workers to fulfil the nation’s technology needs. If businesses and governments want Australia to lead the world in this space, we have a lot of work to do,” he said. “With the federal government’s Jobs and Skills Summit approaching, Digital Pulse makes a strong case for boosting technology training at school, vocational and tertiary levels.”

Attention will also be needed to encourage greater diversity in the technology workforce, ACS said. Currently women represent only 31% of technology workers, although this has improved by 1.86% from the previous year. Meanwhile only 0.66% of the workforce identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, while 45% of tech workers were born overseas.

The report estimates that improving diversity in the technology workforce could increase the number of full-time equivalent roles by nearly 14,000 per year on average for the next 20 years.

Report co-author John O’Mahony, a Partner at Deloitte Access Economics, said the report meanwhile found that technology continues to be a lucrative career choice.

“Individuals can earn, on average, an extra $11,000 every year in salary in tech occupations compared with other professional occupations. If we can boost diversity in the technology workforce, it could be worth over $20 billion to our economy over the next two decades,” he said.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Monster Ztudio