Saxon Hill, CEO of ASX-listed managed security provider eSec, said the Australian IT security sector is only now experiencing a steady recovery following the prolonged recession that has lingered since the dot-com crash.
"I don't think the market is ripe for a steep recovery," Hill said. "But companies can only postpone IT spending for so long before it begins to hamper their efficiency."
While Hill believes the industry is unlikely to return to 1999 growth rates, he believes the ongoing resilience of the Australian economy to global crises should encourage a cautious but healthy improvement in sentiment.
"I would say the September 11 boom in security in Australia was by and large a furphy," Hill said. "However, at the moment we are seeing a growing awareness within companies that security vulnerabilities can lead to significant damage to businesses."
Despite an ongoing focus on security buoyed by the September 11 attacks, computer security administrators appear to have finally succumbed to the economic malaise gripping the US, according to a study released Monday.
Though they remain among the most highly paid tech workers, security professionals in the US have seen their average wage rise drop more than 40 percent since December 2000--from increases of 11.6 percent. And trading up to better paying jobs in the same field is a thing of the past, said Alan Paller, director of research and development for the System Administration Networking and Security (SANS) Institute, which produced the survey.
In Australia such trends have become apparent across the ICT sector, with salary growth appearing to plateau, and experiencing its lowest rate of growth in seven years.
"The supply/demand equation has shifted, and it has shifted a lot," Paller said. "What creates upward pressure is if you are going to lose people, and at this point hardly anyone is moving."
eSec's Hill agreed, describing current salary expectations as more realistic and ultimately more sustainable.
"There has been a resetting of expectations in the security sector," Hill said. "Generally speaking, security has probably sustained itself better than other parts of the IT industry, but we certainly haven't seen a boom as they did in the US."
