Top tech jobs for 2006

Which tech jobs are hot?

The short answer to this is -- just about everything. Whether you cut code, administrate systems, test or even build Web sites there is an Australian employer looking for you right now.

Unlike the dot com bubble boom at the end of the '90s, which was driven by "irrational exuberance", Y2K and the GST, the growth currently being experienced in IT is being driven by diverse, and substantially more stable factors -- much to the delight of industry pundits.

According to Bob Olivier, director of the Olivier Recruitment Group, which monitors the strength of the jobs market by tallying positions advertised on the Internet, over the last 12 months the number of IT positions advertised has grown by 35.4 percent.

"Although it was a little slow at the beginning of the year, between January and March the average number of IT jobs advertised shot up from 14,500 advertised positions to 19,700 positions," Olivier says.

Unlike the '90s, when demand for IT was almost countercyclical with general business demand, the current growth is underpinned by a robust economy with IT jobs only slightly ahead of the overall average, which is sitting at about 30 percent.

In no uncertain terms, the boom in IT is being driven by broader economic growth.

"We're seeing a very strong IT market at the moment in Australia," says Peter Acheson, CEO of recruitment, research and IT consultancy firm Ambit Group. "The top 100 companies in Australia are all investing heavily in IT to take cost out of their operations and increase efficiency. In Canberra the Federal Government has embarked on a number of major projects, and across the business community there is a real shift away from the cynicism we saw at the beginning of the century."

Due to the heavy investment in infrastructure, positions in software development and engineering are far and away experiencing the strongest growth. According to Olivier's Job Index, opportunities for these roles have grown by 48.66 percent in the last 12 months.

Demand for network administration and security specialists -- a long time leader in the industry -- has come off the boil but is still experiencing a growth in demand of around 29 percent. Even vacancies for Internet and multimedia specialists have experienced a resurgence, growing by 65 percent in the last 12 months.

Charged with the task of filling as many of these positions as possible Daryl Keeley, managing director of Macro Recruitment, says the skills in SAP, PHP, C++ and CORBA are in high demand across Australia, thanks to substantial and sustained investment in ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems, and Web-based business software. Keeley's also on the lookout for Unix network administrators, financial administration developers, Lotus Notes specialists, anyone with C# or .NET experience, knowledge of Natural Adabas, and as many experienced testers as he can get his hands on (see table below).

"Testing used to be a job that you were relegated to when you first came out of uni, but these days it's taken very seriously as a profession, and businesses are increasingly looking for certified experienced testers to work with their development teams," Keeley says.

While different recruitment firms report different levels of demand, the one area everyone agrees on is SAP, which was installed extensively throughout state and federal government agencies and the private sector in the late 1990s. There is a significant shortage of people with experience in the administration of functional management of this software and other ERP packages from Oracle and Peoplesoft.

The 10 most sought after categories are listed below. Tune in to Day Two of our coverage to find out in which state these skills and others are most in demand.

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