The A&D market in Melbourne remains buoyant for 2022 as candidates look for new challenges.

The Melbourne market remains incredibly buoyant in 2022. We have seen an increase in candidates who are interested in new job opportunities, new challenges, and a fresh start. It’s noticeable that employers are improving benefits and flexibilities with the aim to retain staff and embrace a hybrid workplace. Project pipelines have also remained strong across most sectors but especially in retail and hospitality interiors, which are looking likely to make a strong comeback. The salary increases we saw throughout last year now appear to have stabilised and are beginning to taper off.

Projects that were once on hold have fired up and there’s a strong push ahead for staff to fill varied needs. We’re seeing practices across all sectors, regardless of their size, currently looking to hire. There was a significant skills shortage over the last 12 to 18 months, but we are now seeing some positive activity from international candidates. We believe 2022 will be a year for the contract/on-hire labour market to boom with the arrival of working holiday visa holders from UK, Europe and USA.

When it comes to specific skills, Revit continues to pave the way in terms of technical capabilities with Revit technicians highly sought after, along with strong project leaders and project architects across most sectors. That said, those with exceptional design talent are continuing to be of interest. Many practices are also looking to make more strategic hires, so those with higher levels of experience are being sought out to help strengthen existing leadership teams and diversify a practice’s service offering. 

There are 3 main factors that are driving candidates at the moment: firstly, much like the rest of the world, a flexible work schedule is a top priority for jobseekers when looking for a new role; secondly, candidates are realising the importance of work/life balance and the effect it has on their mental health, so they are looking for practices whose visions and values reflect the importance of looking after staff; and finally, career progression is another great incentive – as workloads get heavier and candidates are working harder than ever, the majority feel that this should be reflected in their job title and salary.

Overall, we believe recruitment throughout 2022 will remain strong. We’re in a rare candidate market and the top talent has lots of options to consider, so we expect to see practices in a bidding war to get them on board. The slow opening of borders again will re-introduce a new pool of candidates to the country that haven’t been accessible for the past two years, so it will be interesting to see how the market fares once those with particular visas are permitted to enter the country.