Australian IT professionals should expect 2024 to be a momentous year, as ongoing transformation continues to redefine their roles within their companies. Those with certifications and competencies in areas such as security, data analytics, and business analytics will be highly sought after and valued by employers. Coupled with ongoing skills shortages, professionals who work hard to develop their skills in line with current trends will outperform regardless of broader economic conditions.
Budgeting is about finding the right solution
According to Gartner forecasts, Australia’s IT spending is expected to exceed US$133 billion in 2024, a significant increase of 7.8% from the previous year (Figure A). This will be mainly driven by software demand, including cloud services, which will grow by 12.8%.
In addition, spending on IT services needs, including managed services, will increase by 8.2%, highlighting the impact of skills shortages. Organizations looking to embrace innovation will find that if they cannot resource solutions internally, they will turn to third parties.
What this means for IT professionals
Upskilling will be at the core of career development for IT professionals this year. Those that focus on obtaining certifications in hot-demand areas, especially cloud technologies and artificial intelligence, will be highly valued by organizations.
See: Australian IT professionals with the right certifications and experience will find some significant new opportunities.
Additionally, this is a good year for IT professionals to consider moving to managed services and understand how organizations operate across sectors.
Digital services will dominate corporate thinking
Australian organizations are capitalizing on the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to invest heavily in digital innovation. These investments are now starting to bear fruit; with advances in cybersecurity, cloud platforms, data and analytics, and application modernization, the current level of maturity is delivering advanced technology solutions and new revenue streams.
Sectors such as e-commerce, online marketplaces, fintech and healthtech are now catering to customers who are digitally native and prefer to consume services this way. For example, in e-commerce, Australia is the 12th largest market, ranking ahead of much more populous markets such as Brazil.
What this means for IT professionals
As maturity increases, organizations and government agencies want to start rolling out new digital services. For example, after several years of groundwork, the Australian government will launch a digital ID card in 2024.
IT professionals need to be prepared to work in a highly agile environment, where the focus will be on leveraging digital technologies to launch new products and deepen customer experiences.
Cybersecurity will be a mad scramble for compliance
At the end of 2023, the Australian government announced the 2023-2030 Cyber Security Strategy, an ambitious, far-reaching and transformative national approach to cyber security that aims to make Australia more vulnerable to data breaches and losses. Transform into a global leader.
See: Cybersecurity trends to watch in Australia in 2024.
The strategy will bring new compliance policies and areas and strengthen penalties for non-compliance, meaning cyber security will become an area of greater risk for organizations. Some areas of action over the next seven years will begin to change in 2024, including:
- Work to strengthen public-private cooperation and cyber threat sharing and blocking mechanisms.
- Renewed efforts to address the skills crisis by improving Australia’s cyber security workforce and skills pipeline.
- A new national framework for responding to major cyber incidents.
- Investment in community awareness and victim support.
- Further investment in the national cybersecurity ecosystem.
- Better design and implement security in new technologies.
While the aim of this move is to improve cybersecurity outcomes across the country, organizations, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, will struggle to keep up with the rapid action taken by the government in this area.
What this means for IT professionals
Every IT professional in every field should take the time to develop some level of cybersecurity competency. Organizations will look to their IT teams to take a leadership role in this, and the pace of change means all IT professionals should ensure their cybersecurity skills and certifications remain current.
Where IT professionals should focus on skills development
There is an ongoing need for IT professionals to act as a bridge between IT teams and the wider business. As organizations increasingly rely on IT to deliver products and revenue streams, IT professionals who can better understand IT’s broader role in the business will be highly valued.
See: Australian organizations are seeking talent as a service to fill skills gaps.
According to Hays, the five skills IT professionals will need to focus on most in 2024 are:
- Internet Security: Organizations need to respond to the proliferation of threats and an ever-changing regulatory environment.
- Full-end development: The need for application modernization, applications and digital software will drive the demand for full-end developers.
- data analysis: In 2024, data analytics skills will become even more important for making data-driven decisions and innovation.
- Business analysis: Business analysis skills are important to ensure the coordination and success of IT projects and initiatives.
- Cloud platform: Cloud platform skills are required to manage and optimize cloud services and resources to increase efficiency based on required capacity scale.
IT pros are equipped to weather economic storms
While the overall economy is likely to continue to face challenges this year – Australia still faces issues with the cost of living, inflation and global macroeconomic conditions – the IT industry, which can leverage technology to mitigate some of these challenges, should perform strongly this year. For IT professionals, there’s a lot to look forward to.
