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RBA ‘uncertain’ about wage growth, but tech graduates will be more than fine – Deloitte report

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RBA ‘uncertain’ about wage growth, but tech graduates will be more than fine – Deloitte report

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Demand for IT postgraduates will skyrocket in the next five years and the industry will see an average annual income increase of 3.1%.

Deloitte Access Economics this week released its new report, ‘The Future of Work’, a detailed forecast on effects of data and technology on the labour market. The report finds that workers who have completed a postgraduate qualification in information technology (IT) enjoy a 51% lifetime wage premium over those with no post-school qualifications.

According to the report, demand for software and applications programmers in Australia is expected to see a 3% annual growth over the next five years to 126,000 positions.

With wage growth stagnant at just 1.4% last year, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) says there is “uncertainty about how much wage growth will pick up” in its November ‘Economic Outlook’ report. However according to Deloitte, information technology postgraduates are to expect a 16.61% increase over the next five years, which is a compounding increase of 3.1% per year.

The IT industry has been picking up steam over the past decade: in 2016 ‘statistical analysis and data mining’ topped Linkedin’s list of ‘Top Skills’ in Australia and the Harvard Business Review labelled data science as the “sexiest job of the 21st Century”.

“Further study in the data science area can also build core technical competencies for individuals currently employed in other areas enabling them to pivot towards data-related roles,” says David Rumbens, partner at Deloitte Access Economics.

According to Deloitte, demand for IT skills will expand further as non-IT industries begin to integrate analytics capabilities with business operations. Deloitte expects additional job opportunities to arise for IT-trained individuals in many industries such as marketing, finance, economics, agriculture and medicine.

“Computer programming skills will remain fundamental to the data science area, to ensure individuals build familiarity with computer languages such as R, Python, SQL, SAS, MATLAB and Excel. At the same time, there is a need to develop an understanding of the whole lifecycle of data, including the acquisition, management and pre-processing of data,” says James Cook University data science lecturer Dr Neil Fraser.

 

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Josh Loh

Josh Loh is assistant editor at MarketingMag.com.au

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