L-R: Chris Thorpe (Leading Edge Data Centres), James MacDonald (Newy Tech People), Adam Boyle (Pegasus)
Sporting the second-largest population in NSW, Newcastle is known for its beaches, mining history and, most recently, for its burgeoning technology start-up scene.
In February, Leading Edge Data Centres kicked off its initial rollout of 14 data centre sites located in regional areas with the Newcastle area, setting up the first one in Mayfield West.
Speaking to ARN, Leading Edge DC CEO Chris Thorpe noted that the potential for the city’s technological excellence was always there, but was lacking the back-end equipment for it.
“From a digital infrastructure [perspective], Newcastle has got very high aspirations about being a major digital hub,” he said. “But there was no major data centre infrastructure in place. Everything was hanging off of Sydney.
Credit: Leading Edge Data Centres The COVID-19 pandemic brought this fact home further, with Thorpe saying that in a time when connectivity is paramount, these regional locations were lacking adequate infrastructure.
“COVID-19 really accelerated the need for digital infrastructure and has shone the spotlight across regional locations to really show that the infrastructure is not there that should actually be there,” Thorpe said. “It's actually substandard.”
So, instead of being connected to 150 to 200 kilometres of fibre, Thorpe said he saw Newcastle as a “perfect” location to build the rollout’s first flagship site.
While the infrastructure was lacking, what Newcastle has to offer is its skillset, including architects, civil engineers and planners working on the construction.
Selecting talent
And it's not just data centres that are booming, but many projects are seeing new life in Newcastle, according to technology recruiting firm director James MacDonald.
Credit: Newy Tech People "A lot of projects and project budgets were put on hold during COVID. There's a lot of uncertainty around many companies, even with companies that weren't particularly COVID affected," MacDonald told ARN.
“Now, there's been a lot of project spends increasing across the board in Newcastle. We're seeing that leads to a rise in business analysts and project managers and project-based technology work increasing. So, there's been a real uptick in that over the past six months in particular in that project space.”
However, this isn’t just relegated to tech businesses, with a bleed through to businesses of all kinds, MacDonald claimed.
“More traditional organisations have made investments in technology. They've realised that, whether it be COVID, or just the fact that we continue to advance, they've had to change their business models and continue to advance and to stay relevant,” he said.
“A lot of that gets tied to technology-based projects. So even more traditional organisations are really investing in technology, building out our technology teams and platforms. Across the board, there's opportunities for tech professionals in Newcastle.”
The talent pool in Newcastle is seen in two different perspectives, according to MacDonald. The first is as a hotbed for remote workers, with companies based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra all vying for Newcastle-based employees.
The second comes from Sydney employers looking to attract the talent in Newcastle and bring them two hours south into the state’s capital.
Out of all the kinds of different tech professionals, software engineers are in the most demand as of late.
“Whether [companies are] building their own software or they're customising solutions for their organisations, there is need for software engineers. A lot of people like to have those software engineers sitting in-house,” MacDonald said.
“For the past 18 months, there's been a demand for them and that demand is not going away anytime soon. It's extremely difficult to try and find good software engineers.”
In fact, that difficultly is so extreme, MacDonald called the staffing situation “cutthroat”.
"If a software engineer is willing to move, they're going to have a minimum of three opportunities that they could go to,” he said.
But, be it potential Newcastle employees looking for work or Sydney employers looking to put others to work, Newcastle sports a smaller market by comparison to major capital cities, so while there’s not a lot of people to pick from, there’s also fewer costs to consider.
“When you look at some of the bigger organisations, your cost of running an organisation, cost of the brand, cost of building a business there is cheaper,” MacDonald said. “Salaries in Newcastle also tend to be traditionally cheaper than a capital city.”
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