FY25 Trends in Data, Analytics & AI: A Perth Perspective

15 June

Written By Douglas Robertson

With the new financial year around the corner.

I'm trying to wrap up a summary of trends from the past year which is hard.

Here's my attempt. Yet to be formalised. Pushback welcomed.

Content from anecdotal conversations with thousands of professionals and leaders across Perth data landscape.

Here's me in my native data, analytics & AI habitat!

Hiring Trends in Data, Analytics & AI

Most common roles right now: Data Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer
Mid-level roles are the most in demand and there is the most movement
Data Platform Engineers e.g. Snowflake or Databricks in growing demand
Data Scientist demand is low, being replaced by Machine Learning Engineers
Emerging roles gaining traction: AI Lead, Data Governance Specialist, Automation Analyst, Vibe Coder (joking 😅)

AI Hitting the Pavement

Copilot or Chatbot use is now standard across most companies
LLMs trained on internal documents are more accepted and used
GenAI has lost momentum and shifted into practical use phase
AI agents are the emerging trend (essentially smart automation)
Focus is shifting from experimentation to delivery
FY26 budgets will include an 'AI' allocation

The Data Platform Battle

The silent, sometimes not so silent, platform battle rages: Snowflake v Databricks v Fabric
Microsoft Fabric is dominating in government, education and public sector
Snowflake and Databricks still lead in large enterprise e.g. mining
AWS stack (S3, SageMaker etc.) remains underutilised as a primary platform

Computer Vision is on the Rise

We had 5x roles in the last year, more than any other position
Demand coming from startups, scaleups and greenfield projects

Driving factors:

Lower cost to store and move image/video data
Easier to build and deploy models e.g. pretrained ones available
High quality data makes model building more effective

Salary Snapshot

Permanent salaries have remained stable but are below 2022-23 peaks
Contractor day rates are decreasing, particularly in oversupplied skill areas
Market is favouring employers, quality candidates still in demand

The Job Market Right Now

Leadership and entry-level roles face the toughest conditions
Mid-level candidates with relevant platform and automation skills are moving fastest
Recent restructures across MRL, South32, Chevron, Rio, BHP
Despite redundancies, new data teams and projects are still launching
Demand for data work remains high, just redistributed
Smaller players are starting to build out their data teams, or hire their first Analyst!

Predictions for FY26

The year of 'Automation & AI Specialists': whether this becomes it's own stream like data engineering or data science yet to be determined but definitely more hiring in this space.
Larger organisations will be hiring for AI Leads & Governance Owners. Heck we've just seen Roy Hill advertise for an 'AI Business Partner' 2 days ago!
Data platforms will be the new standard. Organisations can't afford to operate with a shoddy data warehouse or no consolidated source of truth if they're going to remain competitive.
DR Analytics Recruitment will continue to supply top permanent and day rate contractors to the Perth & Australian businesses 😉

In Summary

About 50% of the roles that we take I recruitment brief for are brand new.

The data, AI & analytics sector is growing fast, and will continue to.

AI has moved from experimental to expected.

The market is rewarding those who can build and deliver, not just theorise.

DR Analytics Recruitment

I'm Douglas - former data analyst and Founder of DR Analytics Recruitment. We're putting people first by building a community that connects top data and technology talent with the right companies. Our vision is an Australia empowered by data literacy.

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