Hiring Activity across Tech – Hiring Trends:Welcome to our end-of-Q2 report on IT recruitment activity for 2025. As we navigate our way through a variable market, and with some news to update you on our ‘within Sourced walls’ section, there’s lots to cover here.Skip to: * Hot Jobs * What’s happening at Sourced * Skills in demand right now * Overview *In this report, we’ll review recruitment activity over the first half of 2025 and comment on where we see the market heading as we look ahead to Spring. We hope you’re keeping warm in what has been a cold, cold June, and look forward to catching up with you over the coming weeks.We hope this is useful as an update to our TechShapers report from March.General CommentsAs you’ll no doubt be aware, the 2024/2025 market has been ‘challenging’. A bit like Groundhog Day, just as we were saying in June 2024. Looking across the country, permanent and contract job numbers have been down, job seeker numbers up everywhere, and permanent headcount turnover has been remarkably low. Unbelievable to think that in a full calendar year, little has changed. Caveat: Job satisfaction levels are not at an all-time high, risk appetite is lifting slightly, and the contracting market is showing signs of life. Does this mean change is in the air?Permanent and Fixed Term rolesIn the first quarter of 2025, Permanent and Fixed-Term contract roles outnumbered contract roles. These were being approached with real caution by candidates, and employers were holding a long list of ‘must-have’ requirements, all while containing salaries. Employers were also paying more attention to internal promotion opportunities before heading out to the external market, and being very cautious in their hiring decisions. Come Q2, however, we are seeing the first signs that this belt tightening, an over reliance on internal project resources and stalling CI projects are bringing to life the flagging contract market with more and more opportunities coming online over the past 1-2 months. These requirements have been varied across Change Management, Engineering, Business Analysis, and Project Management, generally for short, sharp hits (initially) and then once the business case has been proven, have moved into longer term engagements. While it has made sense to hunker down through recessionary times over 2024/25, this has meant that the ability to deliver work has really stalled, and perhaps we’re starting to see movement to resolve this.Where’s the buoyancy?It feels like there have been months and months of chat about when we might start to see a return to market buoyancy, and we’ve also previously predicted that this was probably a story for early 2025, so now that it’s July, we’re very overdue. In a typical year, October onward is the time when recruitment activity is wrapped up, but a pause is put on new roles to market. Given we’re now only 3 months out from October, it will be interesting to see if we buck the trend and see this bubble of busyness push into to December. Something to watch!Looking at roles and levels, the majority of jobs that have come to market have tended to be at the experienced mid – early senior level. Salary here sits around $80-$120k, with very little demand on either side of this banding. Contract roles have been very specific in nature, requiring specific domain expertise and at just the right level, reflective of a reluctance but concession that these resources are needed to move projects along. As we look out to the new FY, investment decisions are still being evaluated, and a focus on cost reductions continues, so it remains a confused market with a lot evolving requirements. Is Immigration still hot?On the immigration front, we are seeing next to no candidates flowing into the country, unless coming in through study pathways. Accredited Employer status seems to be lapsing with most companies, and they are making use of what has been a candidate-rich market.So, as we’ve reflected in previous updates, all of these conditions lead to a bounce back and a market correction. While it will be difficult to see from the trenches, the sun is starting to shine again, tech will continue on, and will look back at this period as ‘one for the books’ (over the last 20 years anyway). While we won’t necessarily look ahead to new projects, investment and a plethora of career development opportunities for those seeking, we are expecting at least a return to confidence. Hot JobsJunior LevelChange Analyst (Contract) – You’ll need to be super quick for this one as applications close Friday, however, if you’re a Change Analyst with 3-4 years under your belt and ready to level up with some serious programme experience, we’d love to chat to you. 12 months, contract rates, and an employer of choice. Let’s go!Intermediate LevelBI Analyst – One of our favourite clients, who continues to buck market trends, growing rapidly through 2024/25 is adding a further BI Analyst to their team. Think Fabric, PowerBI, Azure, Reporting and Dashboards. $80-$100kSenior LevelSystems Administrator. This is an excellent permanent opportunity for a later career System Administrator wanting a bit of ownership and lower-level IT Management experience. A sole charge role within a complex retail business this is a great growth opportunity for the right person. Within Sourced WallsAs we prepare to send out this update, we also prepare to farewell Olivia, one of our Recruitment Consultants. First joining us in 2019 fresh out of University, Olivia spent close to 3 years as our Candidate Manager before heading off to ARA in a Youth and Community Development role. Then she came back! 2023 saw her pick up where she left off and step into a Consultant role with Chris and Michelle. Although we’re exceptionally sad to see her go again, we won’t have far to walk for coffee catch-ups and doggo walks, as she moves just across the road to the EPIC precinct. Please reach out to her on LinkedIn if you would like to say hi and find out what she is up to.It’s otherwise been a ‘pretty quiet on the big news front’ quarter, and mostly heads down as we try to breathe life back into the local recruitment market. Who is in Demand?It is difficult to pinpoint one key area of demand right now, with recruitment activity being broad and varied, in smaller volume and right across the spectrum. As we discussed above, permanent salary levels are still contained and tend to reflect that most demand is sitting in the mid-level professional space. Roles are presenting as a result of team members relocating offshore (Australia is a big trend here), reevaluating career and life choices and taking time out, or moving internally into new roles. There has been very little recruitment happening at a leadership level, and when it has it’s been very heavily contested. Unfortunately, the downsizing we’ve seen over the past 12 months has focused heavily on ‘non-billable’ resources, management, leadership and senior-level team members. The safest place to sit has been mid level, in the engine room. These roles also continue to drive the permanent market. Are we still Downsizing?Speaking of downsizing, it does feel like we’re getting to the very end of this. We have seen an unmatched level of restructuring, rightsizing, and reorganisation over the past 18 months that had an extremely long tail, but we finally feel like this is largely behind us. We are seeing some larger ERP projects finally finishing up, and conversely being parked for a few months, releasing projects specialists into the market. They are now, however, being quickly picked up, and while 6 months ago we had many experienced contractors on the bench, those numbers are now dwindling. While we have seen undermarket rates being offered for contractors over the past 12 months, these should look to rise again as we move through the year, or at least return to pre-recession levels. What is the Permanent vs Contract balance?Contractors in projects are now much more likely to be able to hang on to their current engagements with extensions more and more likely, and new contract opportunities coming to market in numbers. On this front, we’ve seen a broad and varied demand for PM, BA, Change, Infrastructure Support and Data Specialists. 3 months has been the typical start time frame, however, this has tended to be to get resources in the door and operational and then extending further as value is proven.Permanent recruitment activity sits heavily in Infrastructure Support and mid-level Business Analysis, with demand for software development and professional services skills outside of BA remaining quieter. There has been an emerging trend for Change Management specialists; however, this has tended more towards contract and again at the mid – early Senior practitioner level, adding horsepower to existing projects.Recruitment Activity Round-UpLast year, our resounding advice to the crowd was, stay put, and let 2025 be your oyster, and while we’re running very late, we’re hoping this remains true.Employers are seeking better bang for buck, all tick boxes ticked, and even then are cautious to commit to permanent hires, but this is driving contractor confidence. Our obsession with Fixed Term contracts appears to be over (moving cost off Capex onto Opex) and the power imbalance between employer (strong) and employee/contractor (weak) is waning.With little permanent headcount turnover over the past 2 years, other than restructures and redundancies, as soon as this starts to move, so too will the market.Fun times ahead? Who knows, but as always, no day is like the last in tech recruitment! 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