Newcastle Tech Jobs Wrapped: 2024

Join Kyle from NewyTechPeople and special guest James McDonald as we break down the latest trends in Newcastle’s tech job market.

📉 2024 saw a 26% drop in IT job postings compared to 2023—what does this mean for tech professionals and employers?
💼 The shift towards contract roles—opportunity or risk?
🏢 Hybrid vs. remote work—what’s the new normal in Newcastle?
🚀 Predictions for 2025—will we see growth, stability, or further shifts?

Whether you’re a job seeker, employer, or just interested in Newcastle’s tech scene, this update has insights you won’t want to miss.

Watch the episode

Transcript

Please note: this transcript has been auto-generated and may contain some errors.

Hi there this is Kyle from NewyTechPeople with Newcastle technology job updates video for 2024 today we’re joined by a special guest uh the great James McDonald who Once Upon a Time used to record these videos for new tech people welcome James good to be back good to look at the statistics again uh and have a look at 20 what 2024 brought so you’re pretty rubbish at ping pong mate but you know a fair bit about the Newcastle uh Tech Market I’ve done I’ve been working in the Newcastle Tech market for many many years now I know pretty well definitely uh recruitment uh higher skill level than my ping pong skills all right let’s take a look back on the year that was in 2024 there are 1,72 jobs posted uh on seek under the it Banner compare this to 2023 where there were 1,450 uh there is a pretty significant drop off year on year of 26% uh what are your thoughts on that James not a massive surprise uh 2023 was on the postco boom So Co job number was in tech went through the floor uh a lot of companies were not hiring uh then we seen the Bose Co pman technology went crazy uh all throughout driven internationally big VC markets going crazy L big tech companies hiring created competition in the market uh technology job market was fantastic to be Tech professional there was 203,000 pay increases going on board there’s plenty of job opportunities we had candidates that would interview for a company on one day and then not not turn up to the second round interview because I had other companies offering him a roll on one interview um in that meantime was a was a one time only I think um was the only time I’ve ever seen Tech professionals have so much power um so we seen the drop off of that um in that 2020 late 23 and then into 24 so just a bit of stability in the markets definitely the pendulum swung back companies now have a lot more hiring power uh there’s definitely more opportunities and uh more choice in the market for hiring companies uh hiring Tech professionals you can normally have a a short list of a good couple of candidates or options to look at so um the pendul just swung back it was a it was definitely going to happen and it did and we’re SE seeing what we’re describing as a bit of a new normal which is not too disimilar to a pre-co days where there are good job job opportunities out there for Tech professionals um and there are some good opportunities for companies to high quality Tech professionals locally in 2024 77% of the jobs posted uh were permanent uh while 23% were contract compare this to 2023 where 83% of the rols were permanent and um 17% were contract 77% uh All Tech rolls being advertised being permanent is probably the lowest I’ve ever seen it in Newcastle technology Market Newcastle technology Market traditionally very permanent heavy a lot more Contracting opportunities in Sydney Melbourne Brisbane some of those bigger cities more Contracting opportunities sometimes that comes with the big Banks and the big financial institutions hiring a lot of contractors but Newcastle is always traditionally quite permanent heavy so 77 is probably the lowest I’ve ever seen it but that can create really good opportunities for people that are willing to take on Contracting RS so Contracting R sometimes driven by digital transformation sometimes driven by some big Tech Investments so I think it’s a real positive sign for Newcastle Tech Market to say hey companies are investing in technology projects um and we need some contractors to come on and add bolster to our staff or add some new skills to our internal staff to actually get these projects over of the line so really good opportunity and for Tech professionals the risk is uh Contracting roles are not as stable or secure as a permanent role but in saying that there’s a couple of really big upsides uh you can work with a new company and get a bit of a taste of what’s going on in different environments and actually get some experience working different environments I think that’s a real positive and obviously the rates on offer especially when you get day rate Contracting some really local opportunities out there um and probably the third positive what we’re seeing is some longer term contracts so we’re not talking jumping for a company for a month we’re seeing some 12-month contracts out there some people are going into 6 12month contracts them being extended again so if you’re on a day rate contract 12 months getting paid really well and then you get extended again life’s great yeah no it’s not too bad I mean the the downfall is that I mean you’re not getting your annual leave and sick leave um but you are getting that higher rate and we are seeing quite a few people going from contract positions to permanent positions uh if you’ve been there kind of over 12 months but yeah a lot of contract extensions in Newcastle so yeah really good and it’ll be interesting to see how that Trend continues in 2025 with regards to where people are working roles um that didn’t mention hybrid or flexible work arrangements made up 51% of the postings uh while hybrid uh positions made up 40 uh 7% of the postings and remote made up only 2% of the postings I think the biggest change there we’re seeing is that 2% uh definitely in the co we’ve seen a lot of remote work a lot of remote work opportunities in the greater Hunter region at the moment we’re not seeing really any fully remote opportunities vast majority of companies are looking for people back in the office somewhere between 2 and 4 days a week I think it’s a hard sale to try to get technology Professionals in back 5 days a week uh in Newcastle at the moment just because there are other opportunities out there I think also Tech professionals as well as everyone during Co had that fully remote um time got a lot of flexibility that came with that uh and people aren’t willing to give all that back so a lot of tech professionals are looking for a little bit of flex whether that’s flexing start and finish times or flexing having a day or two to work from home especially if they can get their job done well at home on the flip side of that I’m actually seeing and having some conversations with people who actually enjoying being back in the office like I think it’s a lot easier to build team culture back in the office on these projects and digital Transformations it’s a lot easier if you get a project team together to actually kick things off and start moving things along so I think some real positive um across the board both for companies actually building culture within the teams also for Tech professionals have that bit of camaraderie that you get when you’re in the office with people again yeah for sure I mean I’m I get people that hit me up that are uh fully remote and miss working with other people and they just want to be around other people and they’re happy to kind of trade that off um for you know going in one to two days a week just so they’re around people so they can bounce ideas off people I mean compare the you those statistics um so it was 2% for 2024 were advertisers remote 2023 was 5% uh and the majority of the job postings were hybrid or or mention of hybrid and you know office based was was pretty limited um so being a big shift yeah the trend the trend I think is here to stay yeah for what we’re seeing we’re seeing a bit of a hybrid I think that’s here to stay yeah for sure and we saw that throughout the year like we’ve we’ve got the statistics where you saw less and less remote jobs um advertised so yeah yeah I think if you’re a tech professional that wants a fully remote role it’s probably not with a Newcastle based organization there are a couple out here still but you’re opportunities to probably with either Sydney based organization Melbourne Brisbane or even International organizations and international tech companies as a few of them that’s still hiring fully remote taking advantage of uh International employment and opportunities to get people around the globe so their opportunity still out there if you’re willing to go looking for it yeah I mean that is a good point because uh I mean most remote roles you probably wouldn’t just advertise in Newcastle you’d probably look at you know Sydney Melbourne Brisbane just because it is a bigger talent for more eyes are on the jobs in those areas versus Newcastle so yeah you’re right in that with regards to the levels of seniority uh we’re seeing in the market mid-level rols made up 55% of the postings senior came in second at 18% uh management level rols were 14% And Junior and graduate level rolls for 133% uh this was quite similar to the data in 2023 also I think it’s real positive I think uh what I’m showing is a couple of things uh for that mid level R we’re probably looking between that 80 and $120,000 a year mark so we’re looking at people that have got a couple years experience 2 three years experience maybe moving into that four five years experience uh for some companies so we’re looking at you know reasonable money between 80 and 120,000 what it means that people can come out as a graduate from the University or from doing a course or you get that first job and then actually have opportunities to progress your career here in Newcastle as a tech professional so this opportunities 55% of all the roles are hired in that you know 80 to 120ish Mark so there’s opportunities to move around grow your career um not have to say that one organization the whole way through if you need to move gain skills somewhere else so good opportunities there but more pleasing thing I think is also always been the challenge in Newcastle is as a tech professional as you grow your career do you tap out or are there opportunities enough opportunities there for you to grow your Tech Career here so actually seeing those more opportunities in that senior level and management level local here in Newcastle is great it’s great to say it means we can keep our talent Here Local we can keep growing that talent and if we’ve got senior and management level Tech professionals here they can help mentor and grow that younger generation again and creates that Community creates a bit of a life cycle for that continuation of tech professionals to come through so I think it’s great it’s a great opportunity for Tech professionals to actually stay in the hunter stay in Newcastle have opportunities here so that’s probably the most pleasing part of that yeah statistic for me yeah it’s great and I mean I mean the Junior and graduate level opportunities are quite good as well I mean they’re sitting at 13% um I mean there’s a lot of good talent coming out of the University of Newcastle whether they’re local or they’re you know coming here from overseas um to to study uh the work in graded learning at um Newcastle university has been awesome like there’s so many people that getting good hands-on experience at local companies uh and they’re able to get in there showcase their talents and hopefully secure a job long term so all in all 2024 pretty solid year without being spectacular a bit of a swing back Year from sort of the the postc heights found a bit of a new normal that’s the way we’re sort of seeing it uh 2025 we’re only 3 weeks in but what some predictions for 20125 for you Cole yeah I mean 2024 was a bit of a lull year um we saw that kind of trend downwards from you know the the covid years uh 2023 was pretty high 2024 not great uh 2025 I think it’s looking pretty positive um there seems to be a bit more stability in the market as you said I think this is a new normal um January’s postings are looking pretty good I don’t think I’ve ever been this busy at this time of year um so yeah I’m I’m pretty optimistic and you’ll obviously come back to this at the end of the year and see how things went but um yeah there’s definitely a shift kind of back into the office as you’re aware that um yeah I mean with regards to job postings I I I think it’s going to be pretty positive yeah I think uh 2025 my prediction would be a strong strong year for Newcastle technology Community uh from the conversations we’ve had with clients and companies working in Newcastle there’s a lot of investment going on in Newcastle uh a lot of big projects being undertaken so I think that’s phenomenal I think it’s great great to see creat opportunities locally uh also I think the economy is in a pretty stable spot at the moment um as long as we don’t have any International incidents or or something that comes off really affects what’s going on here obviously we’ve got uh an election year here so it’ be interesting to see whether that has any effect on uh the market locally in Newcastle but I think overall it seems pretty stable I feel like we’ve got that new normal good opportunities across the board pendulum swung back in the middle companies have a bit of pull power where they’re not having to offer $30,000 pay increases and from a tech professional perspective I think uh there’s good opportunities available it is a bit more competitive so you got to put a your good foot forward um and but there are good opportunities there so I think it should be a really positive view yeah for sure thanks for tuning in uh we’ll see you every month uh for the rest of the year where we’ll be updating you on newcastle’s uh technology jobs uh uh also came for any listeners anyone that actually watches this video through to the end um can for you to post below give us your predictions of 2025 either what you predict to see or what you’d like to see in the Newcastle Tech Community thanks again to James for for popping by a bit of a blast from the past so 2025