NSW Leads Job Growth While Tech Market Splits Into Two Speeds

New South Wales was the country's most active employment market in 2025. More than 90 per cent of Australia's October job growth came from NSW, and unemployment has eased to 4.3 per cent. Job ads remain elevated, and hours worked have increased, suggesting that internal teams are carrying an extra load and may need to expand capacity in 2026.

For technology leaders, the market is steady but complex. Restructures across government, media and financial services have placed experienced professionals back into the market, but the demand for deep technical capability remains strong. As Launch's GM for NSW, Hayden Lines, puts it, the market "is not as dire as people claim".

"People talk about the market being tough, but we are still getting roles coming through daily," he says. "The slowdown is in the senior and generalist mid-level project services roles. Technical roles at the mid-level are still competitive, and organisations still find it hard to secure the right experience."

While there are strong labour indicators in the NSW economy, the tech market has seen some high-profile shifts. The most prominent have come from targeted restructures across government, media and financial services.

In the public sector, Transport for NSW has proposed reducing around 950 roles, and the Department of Primary Industries is set to cut about 165 positions, reshaping corporate, planning and digital-adjacent areas. On top of that, the NSW Government has driven initiatives to cut consultant spending, which has now dropped from $130 million to $58 million, and contingent labour expenditure is down 17 per cent.

Private-sector changes sit in parallel. Nine Entertainment is streamlining its broadcast and streaming operations with up to 50 job reductions, and national workforce programs in the banking sector have consolidated technology and operations teams. While these programs are national, Sydney absorbs a meaningful portion of the change due to its concentration of financial institutions.

Through 2025, the NSW tech market developed two speeds. On one side sits a growing pool of senior, project-facing and early-career candidates. While on the other, there is a shortage of specialist technical capability.

Project services has slowed considerably as organisations redirect spend from transformation programs toward consolidation, operational efficiency and regulatory uplift. This has contributed to greater competition across BA, PM and delivery-aligned roles. That same increase in supply is being felt in the senior and management layers, where restructures have pushed more experienced professionals into the market. "There is a layer below the executive level where a lot of people are looking," says Hayden.

Young professionals are encountering similar conditions. Much routine or lower-complexity work is now automated or offshored, reducing entry-level pathways. "It's a tough time coming out of university right now," Hayden notes, "… there's just not the demand for inexperienced tech talent."

Running parallel to this, there is a huge demand for specialist technical capability. Cyber uplift, data governance, infrastructure resilience and early AI strategy work are all placing pressure on the talent pool. Cloud engineers, cyber security specialists, data professionals and emerging AI skill sets are among the hardest roles to fill.

"You can have three hundred applicants for a PMO or senior BA role, and still struggle to find a cloud engineer," says Hayden. "It's two different markets operating at the same time."

Investment activity across NSW reinforces the need for those specialist technical skills. One of the largest commitments comes from AWS, which plans to invest 20 billion dollars into data centre expansion across Melbourne and Sydney between 2025 and 2029. This scale of infrastructure growth strengthens long-term demand for cloud engineering, platform reliability, security and operations talent.

Telecommunications is also undergoing a period of adjustment and reinvestment. Optus is reshaping critical functions, with plans to create 300 new call-centre roles, establish a 150-person Process Centre of Excellence, and onshore network activities previously managed by an external provider. These moves are expected to support ongoing hiring across network engineering, service operations and process improvement.

In financial services, banking modernisation, like Westpac's Unite program and similar initiatives at other major institutions, is central to their medium-term plans. While some elements of these programs are linked to cost savings and rationalisation, they also involve continued investment in core platforms, cyber resilience, data capabilities and regulatory compliance. 

As NSW moves into 2026, the technology employment market is expected to remain steady, although it will continue to operate at two disparate speeds.

The volume of roles has eased compared to the peak hiring years of large-scale transformation, but the underlying need for specialist capability has not shifted and will more likely increase. Technical skill sets in cloud, cyber security, data and emerging AI disciplines will continue to underpin business-critical priorities, regulatory uplift and resilience work.

Contracting demand is likely to lift in areas where organisations need flexibility to progress core initiatives without committing to permanent headcount. Hybrid working patterns are also settling, with three days in the office becoming more common across NSW teams.

The senior, management and early-career layers will remain competitive, shaped by the flow-on effects of restructures and the reduction of lower-complexity work. In contrast, mid-level technical professionals will continue to move quickly through processes and remain hard to secure.

Overall, NSW enters 2026 with a stable, selective and structurally constrained technology market.

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