The Digital Skills Organisation (DSO) has released a report prepared with Tech Council of Australia (TCA) and Accenture which explains what it will take to meet the Australian Government’s goal to reach 1.2 million tech workers by 2030.
The report, entitled Getting to 1.2 million: Our roadmap to create a thriving Australian tech workforce, follows a DSO-TCA partnership and the Digital Employers Forum, which brings together major employers and job-seekers. A digital workforce strategy combined with education, training and skills standards are required areas of systemic change to achieve the increase of almost 300,000 tech workers.
The DSO-TCA report was launched at Parliament House by the Minister for Industry and Science, Ed Husic, pictured below with Patrick Kidd OBE OAM, CEO of DSO. Patrick Kidd will speak at CCA’s upcoming September Sydney conference, on digital skills, digital literacy and the role that Australian adult and community education providers can play.
At the launch, Minister Husic said that tech jobs would be a top priority for the promised 465,000 fee-free TAFE places. The government would act on the calls for action in the DSO-TCA report, which include increasing understanding and awareness of job opportunities, fixing gaps in education and training products and pathways and improving the diversity of the tech workforce.
“These jobs are critical to Australia’s future. They are amongst the fastest-growing, best-paid, most secure, and most flexible jobs in Australia. They have half the gender pay gap of other high-paying industries,” said Kate Pounder, CEO of TCA.
The TCA notes that getting more Australians into tech jobs is also one of the most impactful levers available to meet the goals of the upcoming Jobs Summit. This includes lifting productivity and wages without creating inflationary pressures, increasing job security, addressing the gender pay gap and improving employment outcomes for disadvantaged Australians.
(pictured: Patrick Kidd OBE OAM on left & the Hon Ed Husic MP on right)
About the Digital Skills Organisation
The Digital Skills Organisation (DSO) is backed by the Government and champions an employer-led, skills-based approach to open up digital skills education opportunities to everybody.
By connecting employers with training providers, the DSO designs, trials, and scales training approaches to equip learners with the skills needed to work in the digital economy in line with employers’ needs.
