hairyfishman

Hi,

I was wondering about the IT job market in Australia; specifically in Sydney. I'm a C# / .NET developer, with about 15 years experience; married, 2 boys, and we already have a family PR visa arranged (expires late 2019). We have visited Australia a couple of times; we visited Melbourne and Sydney (probably the 2 main / only places where a lot of programming gets done in Australia, from what I have researched), and we like the look of Sydney.

My wife works, and we'd be selling our house in the UK, and bringing over a healthy deposit (depending on how the £/$ goes...), so the silly price of homes on Sydney are not a deterrant... yet, anyway.

However, we are concerned about me getting a job in Sydney; I'd be the main earner in the family, and I've been reading some very negative blogs / articles online about the future of IT in Aus, particularly with regard to 457 visas, and outsourcing work to India or other countries. Also, there is the issue of having "local" experience, which might be a problem regarding getting a first job... There seem to be lots of ads on Seek etc that seem suitable, but would I stand a chance?

So, could anyone tell me more about the IT job market in Australia?

Thanks in advance,

Chris

Beoz

Outsourcing always needs consideration, both because its cheap but often extremely ineffective and a waste of time. Like London the same can be said for Sydney. (Though the market is smaller in Sydney)

Perhaps you should apply for those jobs on Seek from the UK first. There is no rush to sell your house or buy one in Sydney. If you strike it lucky, and providing you are nimble enough to move in a couple of months, then you are good to go.

sr71

If you are a good candidate you'll find work, the market has been getting better apparently.

There are a lot of negative Australians out there, some have genuine complaints, but I also find there are a lot of lazy, unskilled people who seem to thing the IT industry owes them a living.

BadgeIsBack

It's not so much the outsourcing or lack of jobs it's partly cultural.

Soft dev appears now to be in smaller boutiques and due to massive Indian hiring this last ten years has resulted in depressed salaries : to some extent, or smaller teams where rogue leaders exact their poundage.
It's all gone agile and pain in the arse where even team leads are exploited to some extent.

Larger companies pay more but are also have outsourced to some extent.
Niche industries like finance will still pay top dollar, or you might be able
to get a cushy job in a bank.

My advice to a Java dev or C# : become a BA : salaries are higher. And you get to speak English with your colleagues. Not such a big call for Analyst Programmers : if you are a Net or C# dev you are a commodity.

evets

Job market is pretty buoyant in Sydney, but I do not think wages really reflect actual cost of living. Then again think this can be be said globally!

Not sure what your budget is for property, but be aware that prices listed(if listed) are always way under what they would actually sell for. Auction system here, which makes it hard to guess to the final selling price which could push the price up by 200-300K+

Overall the IT job market here, is not that great but finding itself in very niche roles. Check out a forum https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/

Look under jobs and maybe do a post there which you would find a lot of local's very active.

As mentioned before, check out seek.com.au to get a feel for what roles are being posted.

Also as BadgeIsBack noted, BA roles are the route to head down, hard to offshore unlike dev roles which can be easily outsourced or offshored.