Graduate Careers

Salaries for ICT professionals across the board have shown steady growth over the past 12 months.

The employment outlook
Dynamic career paths
Beyond the graduate market
Skills in demand
Find out more

Demand for IT professionals is on the rise as corporations and governments alike extend their reliance on IT systems to drive productivity, improve quality and open up access to new markets.

At a time when some sectors of the economy are being negatively impacted by the downturn in the US money markets, IT opportunities are abundant.

Recent research funded by the Australian Computer Society forecast that IT skills shortages will grow by 29% by the year 2010 to just over 14,000 jobs unless changes are made to IT employment and skills policies. The research further predicted that the shortfall in IT professionals would reach 25,000 by 2020.

The employment outlook

The IT employment outlook within Australia remains strong. Leading recruitment specialists report solid growth in the number of IT positions advertised across all skill and experience levels over the past 12 months. A robust economy and heavy investment in infrastructure by Australia’s top 100 companies are two of the major factors underpinning the buoyant market.

Graduates entering the IT industry can expect competitive salaries that compare extremely well to other industry sectors. Of course, salaries vary depending on roles and experience, but graduates can generally expect to start on a salary ranging from $42,000 to $62,000, which is among the highest on offer for graduate positions.

Dynamic career paths

IT is one of a few careers that allow you to combine your skills with whatever industry sector you feel passionate about and wish to work in. IT is pervasive, and is a critical component across every organisation in every industry. From health, security, mining, retail, education and government, to finance, hospitality, business, management, tourism and entertainment, IT is the core that keeps the organisation running.

Today, in addition to technical skills and experience, employers place a high value on business knowledge and communications skills. Visit www.ictcareers.info for information about the diverse range of roles available to IT professionals.

Beyond the graduate market

Salaries for IT professionals across the board have shown steady growth over the past 12 months with average increases of 4.9% over the 12 months to May 2008, according to the ACS 2008 Remuneration survey. Salaries in the private sector increased by 5.1%, compared to 4.1% in the public sector, and 3.6% in the education sector.

The global nature of the IT sector also creates international travel and work opportunities. The ACS has been working to achieve accreditation to the International Federation for Information Processing’s IP3 program, which will afford professional members international certified recognition for their knowledge and skills, making it even easier to work overseas.

Skills in demand

As discussed above, IT is suffering from a global skills shortage, which is creating increasing opportunities for professionals.

IT roles even accounted for six of the 20 hottest recession-proof professions according to a survey by US job placement firm, JobFox.

The study found that the skills most in demand and most likely to enjoy strong security in coming years were software design and development, networking and systems administration, software implementation analysis, testing and quality assurance, database administration and general IT management with cutting edge mobile IT and Web 2.0 skills.

Many of these roles increasingly require not only strong technical skills but also highly developed ‘soft skills’ in communication, negotiation, presentation, change management and more, suggesting that the ‘geek’ stereotype of the past has become truly irrelevant to today’s modern IT professional.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s Migration Occupations in Demand List currently includes Computing Professionals with the following specialisations:

• CISSP
• C++/C#/C
• Java
• J2EE
• Linux
• Net technologies
• network security/firewall/internet security
• Oracle
• PeopleSoft
• SAP
• SIEBEL (especially Siebel Analytic)
• Solaris and Unix.

Find out more

Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia
(APESMA), www.apesma.asn.au

Australian Computer Society (ACS), www.acs.org.au

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