Wondering which area of IT to specialise in? A study by job ads site indeed has identified the advertised vacancies which remain unfilled after 90 days or more, providing a pointer to the area where skills are lacking.
Picture: Richard Masoner
“Although unemployment is rising, there is a set of jobs that are increasingly remaining chronically unfilled, and the biggest of these is in the IT and software industry,” Indeed senior vice president Paul D’Arcy told Lifehacker. “What we’re seeing is in Australia is you have two very separate labour markets. You have a set of high demand, very specialised roles most of which require scientific and technical skills, and those skills are in very high demand.”
Right now, the most difficult IT role to fill in Australia appears to be quality assurance engineers. 9.2% of those roles don’t get filled within three months of being advertised.
Here are the 20 most difficult to fill roles and the percentage that remain unfilled after 90 days.
| # | Role | Unfilled after 90 days |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Actuaries | 10.10% |
| 2 | First-Line Supervisors/Managers of Non-Retail Sales Workers | 9.40% |
| 3 | Sales Representatives, Services, All Other | 9.20% |
| 4 | Software Quality Assurance Engineers and Testers | 8.90% |
| 5 | Sales Engineers | 8.90% |
| 6 | Sales and Related Workers, All Other | 8.80% |
| 7 | Management Analysts | 8.70% |
| 8 | Computer Software Engineers, Applications | 8.50% |
| 9 | Network and Computer Systems Administrators | 8.40% |
| 10 | Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts | 8.30% |
| 11 | Personal Financial Advisors | 18.60% |
| 12 | Travel Agents | 13.60% |
| 13 | Accountants and Auditors | 12.70% |
| 14 | Securities, Commodities, and Financial Services Agents | 13.00% |
| 15 | Computer Systems Analysts | 12.30% |
| 16 | Training and Development Specialists | 11.40% |
| 17 | Sales Managers | 11.20% |
| 18 | Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks | 10.90% |
| 19 | Human Resources Managers | 10.90% |
| 20 | Computer and Information Systems Managers | 10.70% |
Comments
13 responses to “These Are The Toughest IT Roles To Fill In Australia”
But the real question is – is this a real case of demand exceeding supply, or simply a case of the positions being under-valued?
I wonder if the wages on offer doubled, would the positions remain unfilled?
Also, why is the list in that order – shouldn’t Personal Financial Advisers (18%) be #1, not Actuaries (10%)?
uh huh
Right.
Also, what’s up with the order of that list? Also a lot of those roles aren’t IT related….
Uh.. how is “Travel Agent” an IT role?
I count 6 out of 20 as IT related.
I think this is using an old concept when IT was under the direction of the CFO
Get your shit together Angus.
With jobs like “Network and Computer Systems Administrators” they generally want you to be Cisco/Mirosoft/VMware etc certified and are offering on $65k a year. And all they really need is a generalist to fill a helpdesk role!
I totally agree… there’s something hideously wrong with the wages in the IT Industry:
I remember being payed a higher base wage as a Computer Operator than as an IT Consultant/Engineer fresh out of university with an ICT Degree. When it came to working after hours I asked them to start paying me overtime, which they couldn’t because of some silly agreement of no-overtime with the client I was stationed with. I hope they sort this out with whoever replaces me because none of my other team members are happy to give up their weekend with no extra pay.
I suspect the IT roles are not due to the anything but the fact that the salaries offered are often piss poor because employers never want to pay the right amount yet expect the world from the person filling the role. You get what you pay for.
Sounds like there’s a lot of angry comments from Personal Financial Advisors, from the level of counting going on..
Was surprised to see Human Resource Manger on the list. From my experience with corporates, this role is typically filled by some blonde bint with large earrings, who immediately outsources her role to Candle/Peoplebank/etc.
Will spend the day having coffees with friends, where the conversation typically veers towards either shopping, or if she is wanting sympathy, detailing the neurosis of her latest Italian/Greek/Swedish boyfriend.
Lodges calls to the Helpdesk complaining that she can’t browse the Internet. Turns out that Outlook is poorly equipped to do so. When advised of her error, will say “Well I can at home, it must be because of the corporate policy”
Manages to forget voicemail password after 4 hours. Everyday.
Peruses personnel files to find juicy conversation topics to discuss in the office, such as “oh, you were in Bosnia, have you killed anyone?”
There is a dire shortage of these types of people ?
+1 if you read this in Outlook.
oh yeah, a shortage.
i applied for a job through a mate (manager) that required the following
Level 3 Network Support VMWare vSphere, Citrix, Cisco IOS, EMC VNX SAN ITIL Exchange, SCCM, Lync, Team Foundation Server and Windows server 2012 2008 desktop virtualisation
as well has high availability and a few other things.
I withdrew my application after i was informed that the salary had dropped to 60k.
the role was deemed as not fillable, so they went to hire 457’s
That’s the point IMO. Sneakily outsource you :P.
Lotta folks here misreading the table