The number of ICT occupations experiencing worker shortages in Australia has dropped, with only six categories of technology jobs experiencing staff shortages in 2026 – down from seven in 2025 – according to new data from Jobs and Skills Australia (JSA).

The government agency's Occupation Shortage List (OSL), updated on Wednesday, found two technology roles defined under the Occupation Standard Classification for Australia (OSCA) are newly in shortage in 2026.

One is cybersecurity advice and assessment specialists, who are defined as providing "specialist advice and guidance on security strategies to manage identified risks and vulnerabilities" as part of their work.

The other is penetration testers, also known as ethical hackers, who carry out approved attacks on cybersecurity environments in order to identify their weaknesses.

"Shortages exist when employers are unable to fill or have considerable difficulty filling vacancies for an occupation or significant specialised skill needs within that occupation, at current levels of remuneration and conditions of employment and in reasonably accessible locations," JSA said.

Four other ICT occupations have remained in shortage for at least six years: cyber governance risk and compliance specialists, cybersecurity architects, cloud engineers, and DevOps engineers who work between development and operations teams.

The ICT jobs no longer facing worker shortages

Three technology occupations defined as being in shortage in 2025 are no longer facing a lack of workers in 2026, according to the latest data.

Those occupations are cybersecurity engineers, who manage cybersecurity systems; cybersecurity operations coordinators, who lead cybersecurity investigations; and ICT test analysts, including specialists such as software testers and automation test engineers.

Software engineers, which were defined as being in shortage between 2021 and 2024, have not been in shortage in either 2025 or 2026, according to the OSL.

Every ICT role defined by OSCA has faced a worker shortage at least once in the past six years, but some have not seen shortages in several years.

ICT project managers have not been in shortage since 2021, while cloud architects, database administrators, and ICT business analysts have not been in shortage since 2022.

About half of the assessed occupations that are no longer in shortage across Australia are from the science and ICT, engineering, and health sectors, according to JSA.

The agency's latest data release comes after Australia's ICT industry shrunk for the first time in 2026, amid falling recruitment rates and a drop in job vacancies.

Occupation shortages easing across Australia

Occupation shortages have eased across the Australian economy over the past few years, and continued to reduce in 2026, according to JSA.

Only 27 per cent of the occupations assessed were in national shortage in 2026, down from 29 per cent in 2025 and a peak of 36 per cent in 2023.

"Despite the overall easing, shortages remain concentrated among professionals and technicians, and trades workers," JSA said.

"Almost half of technicians and trades workers and 37 per cent of professionals were assessed as being in shortage."

For example, the telecommunications industry continues to see technician shortages, including cable technicians and general telecommunications technicians – which have been in shortage for several years.

The most common driver of shortages across Australia's labour market, according to JSA's analysis, is what it calls a "suitability gap".

This occurs when an occupation "has enough qualified applicants, but the applicants are not deemed suitable by employers", the agency said.

"Reasons include a lack of employability skills and work experience."

The second most common shortage driver is an "education and training gap", which "occurs when there are insufficient commencement, completion, and qualified applicants".

"That is, when education and training is not delivering the pipeline supply of workers needed in the labour market," JSA said.

These two main drivers imply that shortage pressures in Australia "could stem primarily from labour supply capability and capacity limitations", the agency suggested.

A less influential driver of worker shortages are so-called retention gaps, which occur when employers are unable to retain workers due to factors such as "low pay, poor working conditions, or moving to higher skilled roles", JSA said.