Australia’s Data sector spent much of FY24 wrestling with economic headwinds, restructures, and a talent market clouded by burnout and budget constraints. But since early 2025, a cautious optimism has emerged—backed by interest rate cuts, a drop in inflation, and renewed investment across Data, SAP, Cyber, and AI initiatives.
Hiring activity has stabilised, salary benchmarks have returned to pre-pandemic norms, and the demand for data-driven business outcomes is higher than ever.
AI & Data Science: Proving The Value
AI has exited its experimentation phase and entered its “ROI era.” Companies are now under pressure to justify past investments. Production-ready deployments in areas like customer service automation and document processing have taken off, while regulatory frameworks in Australia and Singapore are creating compliance hurdles and opportunities for regional specialists.
Job skills demand for generic “Data Scientist” roles has dropped 30%, replaced by surging interest in ML Engineers and AI Specialists. Employers are laser-focused on measurable results and want candidates who can translate business needs into deployable solutions.
Production & Infrastructure
- MLOps platforms: MLflow, Kubeflow, Weights & Biases for model lifecycle
- Model serving: TensorFlow Serving, TorchServe, Triton for production deployment
- Cloud AI services: AWS SageMaker, Azure ML, Google Vertex AI
Skills In Demand
Technologies:
- Large Language Models (LLMs): GPT, Claude, Llama deployment and fine-tuning
- Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): building knowledge-aware AI systems
- Vector databases: Pinecone, Weaviate, Chroma for similarity search
- Transformer architectures: attention mechanisms and model optimization
- Diffusion models: Stable Diffusion, DALL-E for generative applications
- Computer vision: YOLO, ResNet, Vision Transformers
- Containerization: Docker, Kubernetes for scalable AI applications
- Edge AI deployment: TensorFlow Lite, ONNX Runtime for mobile/IoT
Hiring: Market Comeback
Hiring market is showing clear signs of momentum, with companies entering the new financial year more confident and active than they’ve been in a long time. Vacancies are rising, redundancies are slowing, and the sentiment across industries is shifting.
But there’s one factor that’s now make-or-break for landing top talent, and most companies are still getting it wrong. In today’s fast-moving market, only the quickest and sharpest hiring teams will stay ahead.
Job Seeker Challenges
- Stand out by going the extra mile: Passive applications like “quick apply” rarely lead to success.
- Keep your CV clear and simple: highlighting key responsibilities and achievements goes a long way.
- Track your applications: research each company, connect with relevant LinkedIn contacts and build relationships.
Hiring Manager Challenges
- Ensure alignment with the C-suite before going to market to avoid delays.
- Always provide
feedback to interviewed candidates – silence damages your brand. - Communicate quickly and transparently; slow updates risk losing top talent.
Conclusion
Market sentiment for the upcoming quarter is optimistic, driven by rate cuts and low inflation that are encouraging business investment. While hiring is still in the strategic planning phase, a surge in roles often involving multiple hires or squads. Job seekers should remain patient and proactive, as many opportunities aren’t publicly advertised. Building relationships with trusted recruiters is key to accessing these discreet openings and staying ahead of the curve.
Missed the live session?
Catch the full Q4 FY25 DATA Market Report Webinar recording on YouTube and get all the insights straight from Sean and Polain: Watch the recording below.
Want more insights or help navigating the Data talent market? Get in touch with the Precision Sourcing team today.
No related author found.
