With major and unforeseen political events like Brexit and the success of President-elect Donald Trump, we are certainly in interesting times, but how does this affect Australia and what does it mean for the demand technology & specialist digital skills?

Brexit has not yet created the economic turmoil some feared. According to a recent EY Survey, confidence in the UK economic outlook shifted from ‘positive’ to ‘stable’ six months ago. Looking deeper, labour (both recruitment and retention) consistently emerges as one of the biggest post-Brexit anxieties for businesses.
Like in the UK, I suspect things will settle down in the US, but the trend for internally focused politics, first seen in Britain then in the US, also has an effect on Australia. Over the past six months the Australian Government has succumb to the pressure of various factions to implement stronger policies around the 457 Visa which will further put pressure on our market to secure highly sought after tech and digital talent from abroad particularly.

Digital continues to be a hot topic, and we’re seeing companies experiment with business models that combine both legacy assets and digitally oriented approaches. We’re also witnessing major corporates looking to acquire digital startups to help drive innovation and efficiencies for their business.

Australia is no Silicon Valley, but that doesn’t mean Australia isn’t fit for innovative startups. The startup culture continues to evolve and prosper across Australia, with a larger number of accelerators, incubators & entrepreneurship educational programs driving innovation in our country while also impacting the global arena.

Looking ahead at 2017, Australia is no different to our global marketplaces; we anticipate increased challenges in attracting and retaining specialist talent. Skill shortages will continue to drive up salaries for engineers particularly around Front-end Technologies, DevOps, Mobile & Data Science. There is a continuing rise in demand for UI, UX, CX & Service Design specialists as well as Product Management leaders also.

We have put together a Salary Guide for 2017 (see below). It is an interactive compilation of salary and market information from the MitchelLake team, industry data points, clients and our active candidate network. Salary ranges relate to base salaries excluding superannuation and are approximate guides! While we work within salary ranges, unless otherwise stated, the salaries below are the median point of the salary range.

If you would like to chat with MitchelLake about this data, get in touch with our business wherever you are. Click here to connect.