Is Australia in an IT Drought?
Mike from Atlassian recently responded to the obvious derth of Australian startups on the software scene. It's an interesting, complex and somewhat disappointing issue and it lead me to think about the issues facing software companies in my home state of Queensland, Australia. Disturbingly though I think that the issues I'm seeing might be a little more fundamental than a lack of startups. It appears that Queensland is, or soon will be, experiencing a lack of people to start those startups. Put simply, I think we will soon be running low on IT graduates.
Queensland is currently riding the wave of Australia's mineral boom, a great thing for the state's economy. Here in sunny Queensland we have enormous coal, alluminum and other mineral reserves, all of which are adding to the economy, offering jobs and attracting investment in spades (excuse the pun). However, there is bad news in the offing for some other industries, including IT. I've heard that IT-related enrolements are significantly down in two of Queensland's key universities, the Queensland University of Technology and the University of Queensland. They are down so much that QUT has dramatically reduced the size of its IT faculty and UQ is preparing to locate IT teaching at one of its secondary campuses outside of central Brisbane.
Further to this one of the Australian Fairfax papers recently published an article indicating that this is a national trend (it's quite an interesting article, so give it a read), with IT enrolements down at many east-coast universities. For interest sake I also did a quick survey to see if jobs were also down, but they aren't. A quick survey shows there are many jobs with IT staff of all kinds - from the help desk through to product management - in good demand all over Australia.
So there's not been a reduction in the number of IT jobs, nor does there appear to be a reduction in salaries, if anything they've increased. Indeed as the flow-on effects of the economic boom kick in surely there will likely be more positions available with good salaries. Though, from Ephox's experience in recruiting it is becoming harder to find the right people to fill IT positions and I expect that this is being felt throughout the industry.
As an industry we should be asking ourselves how we can make this industry more attractive to young people seeking a career. When I was at university I had never heard of product management and I never expected to be travelling the globe visiting clients, the industry has definitely delivered all I expected and then more. We need to do a better job of articulating the opportunities within IT, the deversity of roles available and the fact that while the bubble burst, IT never went away and is a much needed part of business and our daily lives.
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:14 pm
[...] recently posted a comment on the state of IT in his article "Is Australia in an IT Drought?" In it he comments on the potential future lack of IT graduates in Australia and poses the [...]