And the hiring market is experiencing significant change fluctuating between a “frenzied candidate-short market and a more cautious employer-driven market” according to the ‘More Than Money Salary Guide 2024’ just released by Talent.

The report features key salaries, roles and skills that are in demand for the Australian market including salaries and contract rates for key tech positions in 2024, the most in-demand tech skills for 2024, market insights from the Talent team including experienced recruiters - as well as hiring trends and predictions across the ANZ and the US regions in which Talent operates.

Talent notes that further insights include stats on the local tech talent pool, skills trends, stats on the cost of living across multiple cities, the needs of different generations in the workforce, and the benefits beyond salary that candidates are looking for including observations on the debate around flexible working arrangements.

Talent lists key findings as:

• Salaries have increased by up to 35% across Cybersecurity, Sales & Account Services, Data Analytics, and Development roles since 2023.
• Contract rates have grown between 10-30% since 2023 for roles in Cybersecurity, Data Analytics, Cloud Solutions and Infrastructure.
• Looking at Talent’s hiring data from October 2022 to October 2023, federal and state government layoffs and hiring freezes across Australia have resulted in a 16% decline in contract hiring in this sector.
• Large companies have increased their offshoring by an estimated 10-40%.
• Demand for Project Services talent has decreased as many companies have paused their large-scale projects to save on costs.
• A Talent poll revealed that work flexibility beats out a competitive salary when it comes to what matters most to candidates when looking for a job – 35% noted flexibility as the most important, followed by 29% citing salary.
• A Talent poll revealed that 78% of workers value remote work the most when it comes to the flexible work arrangements that best align with their preferences, followed by 16% who value flexible hours, 6% compressed work weeks, and 1% job-sharing arrangements.

Demand remains high for the following skills:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Cybersecurity
• Data Analysis
• Cloud Computing
• Software Development

Top salaries for 2024 vs 2023 are as follows:

*Excluding C-Suite roles. Permanent salaries are exclusive of superannuation.

Commenting on the flex work debate for 2024, Matthew Munson, Talent Managing Director NSW, said: “For technology sales roles, we have seen the market revert to pre-COVID levels in terms of hiring for many go-to-market roles i.e., sales, sales leadership, and for some roles we have seen demand drop well below pre-COVID levels, i.e., customer success, channel/partner and pre-sales. From the job seekers perspective, there is higher demand on wanting more flexibility around working from home and general flexibility – but although this is the case, we are seeing the majority of companies are enforcing a return to the office (3-5 days per week). In a tougher market this may work, but Australia still has a skills shortage, so when the market lifts, we suspect employers that offer less flexibility will suffer.”

Simon Yeung, Talent Managing Director VIC, said there were significant changes to the national landscape, “A significant emphasis will be placed on bolstering network security, cyber resilience, and the safeguarding of cloud-basedg, data science, and software development is poised to rise as businesses prioritise digital transformation. The persistent trend of remote and hybrid work setups is expected to expand opportunities, attracting talent from diverse geographical locations.”

Young notes that the global technology market is evolving and growing, and as a $5 trillion global industry, it has “significant power in both providing opportunity to the workforce as well as rapidly disrupting the international work landscape”.

“A sense of caution remains prevalent in the hiring market, with a number of job families experiencing slowed demand as a result of company cost cuts. This has seen an increase in layoffs, hiring freezes, and projects placed on pause across the market. However, despite a slow in hiring, there are several jobs where demand and salaries have remained high,” Young concludes.