The last decade has seen rapid growth of the tech workforce as organisations digitally transformed, with the number of these workers increasing 55 per cent, according to new analysis from KPMG.
Since 2014, the number of tech and IT professionals, including programmers, systems administrators, and security specialists, has increased by 176,400.
It puts the tech workforce as Australia’s fastest growing outside the aged and disabled care sector.
“These tech and IT professionals design, code, test, and maintain software applications, driving the digital infrastructure behind our essential online banking, shopping, and time-saving apps,” said KPMG urban economist, Terry Rawnsley.
In addition, many of these professionals support IT systems across a variety of non-tech businesses within the economy, “so it isn’t all just about the glamorous end of tech development,” Rawnsley added.
However, the boom in tech has also fueled a bust for other jobs amid the digital transformations, with declines in bank workers and administrative roles.
“While traditional roles are naturally impacted by the digital transformation occurring in the workplace, tech sector growth opens up a vast array of exciting new jobs,” Rawnsley said.
| Occupation | No. workers in 2014 | No. workers in 2024 | Additional workers | Growth rate |
| Tech & IT Professionals | 320,900 | 497,300 | 176,400 | 55.0% |
Source: KPMG
Australia still needs to add hundreds of thousands of more tech workers to meet the target of 1.2 million tech-related jobs by 2030.
KPMG calculated estimates for the size of each occupation by combining data from Australian Tax Office tax returns, Census employment data, The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Labour Force Surveys and Jobs & Skills Australia NERO data sets.
The analysis also revealed a “manufacturing renaissance” with the report identifying 9.1 per cent growth in overall manufacturing occupational groups with the workforce boosted largely by the 23.5 per cent growth of supply chain support workers, reflecting the more complex and integrated supply chains that many manufacturers now operate in.
“We started to see some improvements in this sector in 2018, followed by another surge in the past couple of years,” Mr Rawnsley said.
“The supply chain shocks of COVID-19 and broader geopolitical uncertainty have made businesses rethink the way they manufacture products, bringing some aspects of their manufacturing process back to Australian shores.”
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