IT salaries to grow, with AI demand strong

IT remains one of the highest remunerated sectors in Australia, but staff attrition rates will remain high unless companies implement strategies to extend the average tenure of employees.

This is according to the latest Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) Aon Salary Survey, which has revealed that average salaries in the IT sector will continue to grow in 2020.

Early forecasts for 2020 expect salaries to grow at 2.5%, a 0.4% fall since the previous survey, indicating some conservatism given the tightening economic environment.

Salary growth will be largely driven by skill shortages, especially in areas such as data and software development, cybersecurity and AI.

“In new industries such as robotics, vehicle automation and cybersecurity, skill shortages will continue to be an issue, especially in the growing area of AI,” said AIIA CEO Ron Gauci.

“High rates of staff attrition are a concern for the industry and employers should be focused on implementing strategies to extend the average tenure of their employees.”

According to the government’s AI technology roadmap, digital technologies including AI will potentially be worth $315 billion to the Australian economy by 2028 and AI could be worth $22.17 trillion to the global economy by 2030.

The Australian information, communications and technology sector employs 663,000 workers in fields related to AI.

Demand for AI specialists is strong, with the number of people employed in this area expected to grow to 758,700 by 2023, at a rate of 20,000 additional workers per year.

Software and applications programmers are likely to experience very strong future growth in salaries and lower unemployment compared to the overall labour market, with an annual before-tax salary of $104,156 compared to the average non-tech-related worker of $73,112.

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