Priority 1: Developing Queensland’s digital workforce

The Digital Professional Workforce Action Plan will develop Queensland’s digital professional workforce to support Queensland’s economic and social recovery and ensure our future prosperity.

Current state

The ability to attract talent into Queensland’s digital professional pool has become a priority as preferences for university degrees and vocational education studies in digital and ICT continue a low long-term trend and fail to keep pace with demand. Without an adequate supply of skilled digital professionals, Queensland businesses and organisations will not be able to transform and compete in the digital economy.

Digital skills and literacy have been embedded into the Australian National Curriculum since 2015 and our students now graduate with basic digital life skills. However, this uplift in skills has not translated to a pursuit of a digital or ICT career. Our consultation and engagement across the state suggests some negative connotations may still exist around digital careers including the difficulty level, negative stereotypes of ICT workers and insufficient knowledge and information around the scope, breadth and value of digital professional careers.

The constant evolution in technology is reshaping occupations. The new job categories and skills require an agile approach from our education sector to fast-track contemporary training and development. The consultation undertaken to develop this plan for Queensland highlighted that 68.3% of respondents felt that digital and ICT skills and training did not meet their region’s labour market needs.

Future state

Queensland will create a talent pipeline for digital professionals. School leavers, parents and those seeking to reskill, including older or displaced workers, will have a positive perception of a digital career, will be assisted to navigate career options and understand pathways to get there. Queensland will offer a full range of training and development programs that ensure learners have cutting edge digital skills. Digital and ICT careers will become a career of choice as people become aware of the benefits of these exciting jobs of the future.

Actions

• Implement a digital career campaign aiming to reach 300,000 Queenslanders. The campaign will target people impacted by COVID-19, school students, teachers and parents and showcase the opportunities possible in a digital career. The aim is to inspire more people to plan for these jobs of the future.
• Build an online digital industry directory hosting and promoting digital career opportunities and matching nationally recognised digital career skilling, reskilling and upskilling course information (including subsidies) and a calendar of events and professional associations. The aim is to engage people and help them take action to move into digital professions whether they are leaving school or mid-career.
• Increase awareness and participation in professional digital education pathways by:
  • reviewing the digital traineeships and higher-level apprenticeships that are currently available on the national priority skills list, stimulating demand for these programs particularly for workers who have been impacted by COVID-19
  • identifying any gaps and co-designing offerings that could be added to the VET sector and registered training organisations to address in-demand digital skills.
• Enable and promote regular contemporary technical skills advice from specialists from the digital and ICT industry to education, tertiary and registered training providers. This will ensure that curriculum and graduates meet labour market requirements commencing with high-demand sectors such as cyber security and data science.

Our metrics

• 300,000 Queenslanders engage with the digital career campaign over 4 years.
• Positive perception of digital careers after interacting with the digital careers campaign – the aim is for a 10% improvement from the baseline measure to be determined prior to commencement of the campaign.
• Visits to the online digital industry portal.

Success looks like

• Increased supply of digital professionals in Queensland.
• Positive perception of digital careers.

Case study: Construction

Brisbane based tech business Real Serious Games creates engaging ways for businesses to train, upskill and create safer work environments by using extended reality (XR) technology. It works across construction, mining, transport and education industries to ensure the workforce of tomorrow is highly skilled, adaptable and ready.

Its technology takes training beyond the in-house seminar and handbook to show people not just the way tasks and procedures should be carried out, but to understand the implications behind the decisions they make. It creates complex scenarios so people can understand and learn to react wisely.

RSG creates world-leading XR products, solutions and experiences developed from a solid base of technical expertise, industry experience, and an understanding of human behaviour across industry, business and education.

Its team of 30 has diversely broad backgrounds - like the research and development manager who leveraged his experience and wide skill set with game and visualisation industries to ensure the company stays ahead of current trends. A 3D artist ensures the technical concepts are brought to life with detailed architectural visualisation of projects. A civil engineer combines and applies her technical knowledge and experience to the extended reality, custom applications, 4D planning, 3D visualisation or forensic animation.

This type of adaption of industry technical skills and knowledge can open up multiple opportunities for those looking for a career in the digital economy.