Technology and Transformation recruitment trends
Hiring demand and project pipelines have increased across all Technology and Transformation industry sectors in Sydney. We’ve observed a moderate uplift in job volumes and hiring activity, with a strategic focus on cybersecurity, AI, and cost optimisation.
Organisations continue to prioritise cybersecurity and compliance, making significant investments to strengthen their security posture in alignment with the Cyber Security Act of 2024. More broadly, there is a strong emphasis on enhancing customer experience and streamlining operations. This has led to greater exploration of agentic AI and system refreshes across infrastructure and legacy platforms.
In financial services, project work has increased, particularly in infrastructure modernisation and simplification, regulatory uplifts, migrations, agile adoption, and cybersecurity. Overall, job flow has risen, creating opportunities for professionals who can adapt to the technological advancements that organisations are prioritising. With cost control in focus and AI adoption accelerating, cloud optimisation remains a priority—incorporating both public and private cloud strategies.
In government, hiring activity has outpaced the broader market and is up compared to the same period last year. There has been a surge in transformation-focused roles, particularly Project Managers, Business Analysts, and Coordinators, with cybersecurity remaining a key area of demand. As the financial year draws to a close, many government organisations are looking to allocate remaining budgets, leading to an increase in short-term roles, often with the potential for extension beyond the end of the financial year.
Gender diversity remains a priority in technology hiring strategies. However, following the latest 2025 WGEA data update, published in March, there is now greater attention on closing the gender pay gap in technology functions. Organisations are increasingly focused on attracting, developing, and promoting women into higher-paid roles, particularly in leadership, architecture, and technology lead positions.
Technology and Transformation recruitment – looking forward
As digital transformation accelerates and cyber threats grow more sophisticated, cybersecurity will remain a top priority for organisations. We expect to see a blended approach to cybersecurity hiring, combining key cyber vendors with in-house teams. While offshoring continues as a cost-saving measure for other technology roles, cybersecurity budgets remain strong. Most organisations are adopting a hybrid model—outsourcing functions like Security Operations Centers (SOC) and penetration testing, while maintaining in-house expertise in governance, data architecture, analytics, and engineering.
Cybersecurity skills are also becoming more embedded across other technology roles, including technology leadership, DevSecOps, software engineering, data governance, IT operations, and risk management. As a result, we anticipate continued growth in cybersecurity teams and an increasing demand for security expertise across broader IT functions.
AI and machine learning demand is expected to rise, particularly among eCommerce and retail clients. With market conditions improving, organisations are likely to continue investing in technology across multiple sectors.
Looking ahead, we anticipate a rise in hiring activity as new programs launch with the start of the new financial year. Demand for senior project resources, including Project Managers and Business Analysts, is increasing, signaling the early stages of project lifecycles. Hiring managers are actively seeking increased budgets to support business cases, workforce expansion, and project delivery. As these initiatives gain momentum, we expect a growing appetite for specialist contractors and consultants to complement permanent teams, which have been the primary focus in project hiring over the past 18–24 months.
