CSIRO, IBM and Zendesk Australia's top hirers for AI roles

Indeed analysis reveals continued rise in demand for candidates with artificial intelligence related skills

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Tech giants, universities, consultancy firms and a retailer are among Australia’s top hirers for artificial intelligence related roles, according to analysis by job-site Indeed.

The government’s scientific research organisation CSIRO emerged as the top seeker of candidates for AI roles, measured by number of jobs requiring related skills posted to the website this year.

In second place was IBM, followed by Zendesk, Culture Amp, Macquarie University, Google, Atlassian and BCG Digital Ventures.

The rapid rise of the specialised field is leading to a ‘skills mismatch’ said Indeed’s APAC economist Callam Pickering.

“That is, the skills in demand from employers are not necessarily the skills possessed by job seekers. This often happens because the skills in demand are rapidly changing, reflecting the needs to adapt to new technologies,” he told CIO Australia.

“Artificial intelligence is an extremely specialised field and that can make attracting skilled candidates difficult. Its recent emergence means that there are limited workers in Australia who can be considered AI experts. This has been hindered further by immigration policy,” Pickering explained.

Indeed defines AI-related roles to include data scientists or software engineers job postings with specific machine learning skills requirements, as well as more specialised roles such as machine learning engineer.

“Employees working with AI are typically trained in coding and modelling. They will have detailed understanding of one or more coding language. They will be well versed in machine learning. But as an emerging industry the skills in demand are constantly evolving,” Pickering said.

The number of AI roles advertised on Indeed has trended upwards over time, but postings peaked in June and fell slightly towards the tail end of this year.

Nevertheless job postings for AI-related roles doubled in October compared with the same month last year and average job postings per month are up 154 per cent on last year.

“As an emerging and still quite small industry, the number of opportunities available at any one time will be quite volatile. So we tend to focus on the broader trend. That trend is certainly very positive. We anticipate further growth next year,”

The rise in demand from firms has been matched, however, by rising interest from job-seekers in pursuing AI related careers.

“The number of clicks on AI-related jobs has tripled this year compared with last. Hopefully this means that skill-shortages, to the degree they exist, are not getting worse,” Pickering said.