Technology has become increasingly important for the operations of Tasmanian businesses and the functioning of the State’s economy. Tasmania’s technology sector – along with the national and international technology sectors – provide the infrastructure, products and services for Tasmania to take advantage of the evolving landscape. The Department of State Growth commissioned this analysis to provide a snapshot of the Tasmanian technology sector
The Tasmanian technology sector is a significant sector for the Tasmanian economy and generated $1.7 billion in revenue in 2020-21. The outlook for both Tasmanian technology businesses and workforce is a positive one. If the strong recent growth of the sector continues at its current pace of 6.4% a year, the sector’s revenue is set to increase by $467 million to reach $2.1 billion by 2024-25.
To better understand the sector, this report looks beyond the services provided to the underlying capabilities, based on the globally recognised Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA framework). There is wide variety of capabilities within Tasmanian technology businesses such as programming and software development (47% of businesses), systems integration and build (38%), and cyber security (36%).
Nearly 9 out of 10 (87%) Tasmanian technology businesses reported facing a barrier to growth in their business. The survey and industry consultation undertaken for this report suggest there are four main areas to enable growth in the technology sector – skills, greater access to markets, ability to access start-up capital and incentivising more technology businesses to move to Tasmania. Addressing these barriers could see further growth in the sector and would lead to revenue of up to $3.1 billion by 2024-25.