IT Jobs Still Stuck in Sydney & Melbourne

Appeared in: SMH.com.au
Author: Sylvia Pennington
Date: February 2012

Always-on connectivity has made location irrelevant for thousands of wired-up workers in the IT industry, but for those looking to climb to the top of the greasy pole, the best opportunities remain in the big smoke.

The bulk of the country’s juiciest IT roles at telcos, utilities and major corporates are concentrated in Sydney and Melbourne and senior spots with IT vendors are mostly based in these centres too.

Chief executive at IT recruiter Peoplebank, Peter Acheson, said Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and even Darwin, all offered good opportunities for IT executives to take on high levels roles within medium-sized enterprises, but moving up from there can prove more problematic.

Large CIO opportunities are still thin on the ground outside Melbourne and Sydney and may be tightly held by those who have snagged them and made the lifestyle decision to stay put.
Adelaide, for example, has only around 12 major CIO roles, compared with Melbourne and Sydney’s hundreds, Acheson said.

Head of change resources at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Paul Dewsnap has lived in Adelaid since 2003, after stints in Melbourne, Sydney and the US. He agreed that senior roles were scarce, especially in the banking and finance sector, but said the cheaper cost and relaxed pace of living were compensatory attractions.

“A lot of South Australians return here from working overseas and they return for the lifestyle,” Dewsnap said.

Taking an existing opportunity and looking to grow the role could be a good strategy for IT professionals wanting to stay in the smaller cities without stymying their careers, he added.

Acheson said a smaller city role could work well for ambitious types if viewed as a stepping stone to a better long term position in one of the major centres, rather than as a final destination.

“You do get to a ceiling in those places.”

Veda CIO Tony Kesby agrees. A veteran of the London and US markets before settling in Sydney, Kesby said taking work in the smaller cities involved a trade-off between lifestyle and ambition.
“Highly career oriented people will always gravitate to where the action is,” Kesby said.

Being in the smaller cities can also mean a disadvantage when it comes to the sort of regular shoulder rubbing that generates personal connections and leads to word-of-mouth job opportunities.

Industry events, vendor seminars and CIO roundtables are almost always held in one of the big two capitals and popping in for a couple of hours of meeting and greeting isn’t possible if you need to fly in from Perth to do it.

Being Sydney based means being able to get along to around half the worthwhile events – while CIOs who live out of state would be lucky to show their face at one in ten, Kesby estimated.

“You make a lot of connections that way quite effortlessly,” he said. “You’re out of the loop to some degree if you’re not there. In this day of virtual connection, there is still something about sitting around a table – there’s nothing better than face to face.”

But Melbourne-based managing principal at software vendor SAP Mitchell Faiman says working the ‘virtual room’ can deliver many of the same benefits, for those who are prepared to persevere.

“Networks are virtual by nature and the heart of the action is a very dynamic thing. One day the action could be in your city and the next week it is somewhere else. It is up to you to keep your ear to the ground and connect on a regular basis.”