Rising labour costs for Australian software development

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Despite Australian tech companies like Afterpay making headlines for their successes abroad, industry analysts have generally held growing concerns over the past few years for the future of Australia's tech and software development market.

These concerns have only been exacerbated by the great impacts that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has held on homegrown software development agencies and other industry professionals.

With an influx in digital development initiatives from both the public and private sector as organisations respond to growing demands for alternative zero-contact processes, Australia's software development professionals have experienced a record level of projects falling into their laps.

The increased workload faced by Aussie software developers and the simultaneous introduction of a plethora of new jobs and roles for software developers at all levels of professional development is one of a handful of reasons why the costs of software development in Australia are rising steadily and with no end in sight.

What does this mean for Australia's tech and digital development sectors? And how will this impact tertiary students that are looking to enter the industry? We'll be exploring the complex answers to these questions below.

iOS app developers are amongst the most in-demand when it comes to software development in Australia, particularly due to the rapid nature of iOS system updates.

With Apple's annual, cyclical release of new personal tech devices, app developers are generally forced to scramble to optimise their apps to ensure compatibility with Apple's latest operating systems.

As apps can generally cost anywhere between $50,000 and $250,000 to develop, there is a significant financial strain on companies looking to develop their own company apps. This financial strain is only deepened by the need to routinely patch apps that are still in development with every iOS update.

With the release of iOS 15 in late September and the extensive list of subtle tweaks and UI improvements to iOS, software developers across the globe were undoubtedly working late hours to ensure that their clients' apps were bug-free.

These long hours for the sake of damage control naturally translate into increased costs for companies who have invested a considerable amount into app development as is.

It's these long hours with minimal notice amongst other disadvantages that prompt many software developers to leave the profession and settle in other similar industries or roles, including the increasingly attractive branch of cyber security.

As their long and irregular workdays and excess work are themselves a symptom of the Aussie ICT industry's dire shortage of skilled software developers, the exodus of even more developers has naturally placed a growing strain on employers to ensure their development team is well-remunerated.

Another factor that must be considered, is that ICT is considered to be a global industry, and giant tech companies and conglomerates like Facebook and Google are generally not averse to hiring professionals from all corners of the world.

Cyber security companies like Crowdstrike, for instance, benefit greatly from widening their talent pool and take pride in their widely distributed workforce.

Australia's dwindling population of ICT professionals has naturally prompted the cost of hiring skilled developers to rise by around 30 per cent in the last 12 months alone, with data analysts asserting that these costs are likely to continue rising.

Naturally, one particularly negative impact of foreign tech giants poaching homegrown talent, is that the shortage of skilled industry professionals in Australia will continue hindering Australia's own digitalisation and the development of our own digital infrastructure, both across the private and public sectors.

One other noteworthy subsequent impact of Australian software development professionals leaving their professional roles vacant is that many non-tech companies and development agencies alike will opt to outsource their software development needs to offshore developers over domestic programmers instead.

Whilst many believe that outsourcing can significantly cut costs of software development, there is no denying that outsourcing can come with its own disadvantages, including the impacts of miscommunication alongside the general challenges that accompany managing a remote workforce.

Although initial costs of labour are lower when enlisting the services of software developers based in Asia, outsourcing large-scale projects to remote professionals has been known to delay homegrown digital development projects, and can also result in finished products feeling quite off-centre from original app or software design plans.

Despite the tumultuousness of the industry, there's no denying that software development is a highly lucrative career pathway for young people, which is precisely why tertiary institutes are developing their own courses to cater to aspiring programmers.

With the industry's skill shortage, tertiary students are also able to gain real-world experience as a programmer whilst earning their qualifications too.

Many schools across Australia are also developing coding skills-building workshops to encourage young people to engage with coding as a discipline at a younger age.

As a result of these initiatives and the growing popularity of app development as a practice, young Australians have grown to recognise the value of learning how to code. In a rapidly digitising world, coding skills are rightly being seen as an indefatigable asset.

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As Australia continues to play catch-up to the advanced digital developments being conducted across Asia and in California's Silicon Valley, there are still a collection of Australian software development companies that are experiencing great success, both nationwide as well as on a global stage.

It's likely that even with the industry's skill crisis, driven homegrown software development companies will continue to make waves in the global development industry, allowing Australia to continue to forge its own place amongst other nations with their own burgeoning development agencies.