The roles attracting the big dollars in tech

Most of the global advertising groups, caught by a downturn in ad spend, are in the middle of restructures, cutting overheads and seeking efficiencies. 

The outlook for the technology world isn't much better.

Worldwide, there have been nearly 100,000 layoffs from close to 350 tech companies in 2024, according to Layoffs.fyi, a site that tracks job cuts in the tech industry.

The tech giants of Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap, Microsoft, Google and Apple have dominated headlines for their mass waves of redundancies, along with smaller startups and rising players who have cut costs due to economic uncertainties and a decline in market conditions.

WIRED reported that specific types of jobs are beginning to bounce back however, with openings for AI roles or those that require AI skills making up 12% of all tech job offerings in May in the US, the largest percentage in six years.

Data, cyber and mobile app developers commanding the highest salaries

Crew Talent Advisory founder Simon McSorley said the highest-paying roles at the moment in the Australian tech market are the ones where supply and demand are mismatched.  

"In 2024, this is Data Engineering, Data Science and Machine Learning Engineering," he told AdNews. 

"These roles are paying over $200k for senior-level roles. They're the roles that link information and the end user. I see a trend of a renewed focus on human skills such as high-level communication (translating complex information for non technical audiences), user empathy and creativity." 

McSorley said that as artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLM) models allow content to be more easily generated at the risk of homogeneity, true creativity is a rarer commodity that will also become more valuable in the job market.

Randstad Digital's principal recruiter Hannah MacLeod said that anything in cyber security tends to be the highest-paying currently, with roles such as architect and program managers near the top of the list (behind the standard high-paying tech roles like CTO or CIO). 

"Cyber as a term is super vague, but a Cyber Architect could be on upwards of $300k," she said. 

"We have candidates candidates who get paid $1,200-1,700 per day in leading cyber roles. We worked a CISO (chief information security officer) role recently paying approximately $400k including bonuses. The candidates we spoke to were on anywhere from $400-800k including super and bonuses."

Aquent Australia's practice manager, design and technology, Lee Shorter, said that some of the highest paying technology roles at present are within mobile app development. 

"We're seeing salaries range from $120k at the junior end right up to $180k for seniors. Although relatively similar, iOS Developers can command slightly higher salaries than Android Developers," said Shorter. 

Aquent's salary table shows CTO and engineering heads leading the pack in terms of salary:

A slow, sluggish market to continue in H2

Macleod said that so far this year, recruitment in tech has been really slow, with little to no roles available in the market and a market flooded with high quality candidates who can't find work.

"We are seeing things slowly start to pick up now so we anticipate to be busier as soon as new financial year budgets are released. 2025 is predicted to be really busy for the Melbourne tech market," she said.

"If you are offered a role at the moment my advice would be don't be too picky. I would also recommend candidates consider a decrease in their usual rate to ensure they don't end up out of work for months on end like I am seeing often." 

Macleod said that rates have significantly decreased in the last 12 months; immediately post-COVID, project managers and business analysts were able to get over $1,200 per day for a six-month contract, but now are lucky to get $1,000 per day. 

"A lot of our clients are pushing towards having a majority of their tech workforce offshore in India (this is a cheaper option). This is cyclical though, so we predict that in 12-18 months they will come back to the Melbourne market,” she told AdNews.  

Shorter said that while in the design space, Aquent is seeing businesses looking to cut costs, downsize teams, and bring onboard generalists that can work end-to-end (e.g. research through to UI), it's quite the opposite within tech teams.

"Businesses still continue to search for specialists who can work within their existing tech stack and have experience with specific platforms, and are willing to wait to find their ideal candidates," he said.

Shorter said that there's been a large shift towards permanent hiring, as is the case in most specialisms, but tech is an area where this has had the biggest impact given the disproportionately high volume of contract workers in that space compared to other business areas.

"The knock-on effect of this is contractors being willing to take on shorter-term contracts or work for a lesser rate to continue contracting as opposed to taking on permanent roles," he said.

Looking at the second half of the year, Shorter said that many predicted the first half of this year would be busier, but he agrees with Macleod that it's remained sluggish.

"Job seeker numbers far outweigh job vacancies and that is unlikely to change too much between now and the end of the year," he said.

"It tends to mean the best, and most experienced, tech professionals won't struggle to find roles but businesses won't just look to get bums on seats. It’s also likely to mean arduously long recruitment processes and technical tests as businesses hold control."

McSorley was more bullish, however, saying the local market is still cautiously optimistic with the start-up space seeming to lead the way.  

“The consulting space [still] has some challenges for a while I suspect, though" he said. 

Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au

Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.