Ballarat’s tech boom brings promise and pitfalls as Accenture, State Government drive growth

Ballarat’s technology sector is on the rise, but the path forward isn’t without its risks.

Accenture will open a new technology and operations centre in the city in May 2025, creating onshore jobs in application development and IT service management, according to job board listings and local business sources. The move, combined with a rumoured relocation of Victorian State Government IT roles to the Ballarat GovHub, has local recruiters and workers weighing the opportunities against mounting challenges.

Right now, across major boards like Indeed, LinkedIn and Jobted, roughly 75 to 78 technology listings and more than 166 IT-specific vacancies are open in Ballarat. Major employers hiring include IBM, ANZ, Chemist Warehouse, Harvey Norman and St Vincent’s Health Australia. IBM remains a significant presence despite recent downsizing trends.

Salaries and competition

Typical tech salaries in Ballarat range from $70,000 to $100,000 a year. IT Support Technicians and Systems Engineers can expect $75,000 to $85,000, according to current job postings. Those figures are competitive for the region but still trail Melbourne rates for comparable roles, a gap that could widen as more specialised positions open up.

More than 30 businesses already operate out of the Ballarat Technology Park, and the State Government’s potential IT relocation to the GovHub would add hundreds more roles. But the local market remains small, and recruiter specialist representation is limited, making it harder for both employers and candidates to find the right match.

Offshoring and ethical questions

The promise of new onshore jobs comes against a backdrop of offshoring from big names like IBM and Telstra, who have shifted support and development work overseas in recent years. That tension, local growth alongside global cost-cutting, raises ethical questions for workers and businesses alike.

For job seekers, the advice is pragmatic: diversify skills, look for roles in demand (such as M365 Developer, Service Desk Engineer and Custom Software Engineering Analyst), and keep an eye on the GovHub and Accenture hiring timelines. For Ballarat’s tech community, the next 18 months will test whether the city can turn a wave of announcements into a stable, high-wage ecosystem, without repeating the offshoring patterns that have hollowed out other regional tech hubs.