The technology sector contributes around $248.5 billion to the Australian economy, 8.9% of national GDP, according to a new study by the Tech Council of Australia (TCA).
Releasing a new report ahead of the industry lobby group’s annual Parliament House showcase for politicians in Canberra today, the Tech Council was keen to press the case for the sector addressing the nation’s flagging productivity, arguing that its second most productive sector in the economy behind mining.
The report, Technology as Australia’s Productivity Engine, concluded that the tech sector was the most significant contributor to economic productivity gains over the past decade, with its impact spreading dramatically beyond the sector’s direct impact.
In fact, the nearly half the $248.5 billion total came from indirect tech-enabled activity (ie. industries that use tech), with the TCA claiming “we are ‘techifying’ an entire nation”.
The report shows that while the direct tech sector contribution has doubled over the past decade, from $63.5bn in 2015, to $126.2bn in 2025, its growth has been modest in the last five years, up by around a third, while its overall contribution to GDP has actually fallen over that time, from 4.7% ($93.1bn) in 2021, to 4.6% now.
Indirect tech drives growth
Meanwhile, indirect tech adoption has outpaced the growth of the tech industry itself overing the past decade, with the Covid era delivering a major fillip worth nearly $67 billion to the national economy since 2021. The report estimates the indirect tech sector contribution at $55.9bn (2.8% of GDP), and more than doubling to $122.3bn in 2025, representing 4.4% of GDP.
The indirect figure includes things like cybersecurity and AI as companies grapple with issues such as fraud and hacking in its adoption of tech.
The report defines direct tech as firms whose primary activity is technology creation, development or provision (eg. software, digital platforms, IT services, telecommunications, hardware and emerging technologies).
Indirect tech is all other industries that embed, deploy or rely on digital technologies to deliver goods and services. That includes finance, healthcare, construction and retail.
It argues that “there is a widening productivity gap between the technology sector and the broader economy, characterised by both higher absolute output and accelerating growth rates”.
But the report appears have it both ways when claiming that the broader adoption of tech in the broader economy is leading the charge in GDP growth, pointing to indirect tech productivity growth of nearly 9%.
TCA head of research Dr Ilana Feain said the council set a goal for the tech sector to reach $250 billion in contributions to GDP by 2030.
“Technology-enabled work is now contributing as much economic value outside the tech sector as within it. Tech is no longer just an industry. It is driving productivity and growth across the whole economy, in sectors as different as banking, agriculture and aged care.
“Across much of the economy, businesses are still in the early stages of adopting digital tools such as cloud computing, software and data analytics. There is substantial room to grow.”
US leads export opportunity
In 2025, exports of Australian tech goods and services were worth $13.7bn (2.1% of total exports), growing with a CAGR of 5.5%. The US is Australia’s most important market, representing 45.3% of tech exports, followed by Europe at 38%. Surprisingly, Asia sits at just 9.6%.
These figures predate the Trump administration and the disruption it has caused to global trade.
And Dr Feain notes that while the export base has grown, the share of total Australian exports has fallen from around 2.5% five years ago to 2% today.
“With the right investment and support, tech exports could represent an area of future growth,” she said.
“But we need to ensure that growth is sustainable, diversified, and resilient in a more complex global environment.”
As the first signs of AI disruption and the loss of thousands of jobs at tech companies such as Atlassian, WiseTech Global, and Block, to name just a few, begin to hit, the TCA does its best to paint a positive picture on a key shibboleth – the government-endorsed goal of 1.2 million technology‑related jobs by 2030, but appears to be fighting a losing battle. “Jobs” features just 5 of 7 times in the main body of the report.
That’s notable, because up until now, the promise of more jobs has been central to the TCA’s pitch to Australia’s politicians. The 1.2 million jobs ambition is not cited in this report.
The TCA appears to have shifted its emphasis in terms of the benefits of tech.
Jobs outlook challenged
“Since 2021, technology jobs grew by close to 200,000, with total tech employment now close to 1 million,” the Tech Council’s media release says.
The actual number is 80% of that figure – 161,000 jobs between 2021 and 2024 – at an annual growth rate of 6.9%. But that still inflates the actual number by 25%. The ABS doesn’t have that level of error in its data.
Nonethless, it more than double the annual national jobs growth rate of 3.1% over the same period, which in itself an increase on the 10-year pre-Covid average of 1.7%.
The report says tech is Australia’s 7th largest employer by industry, at 7.5% of the jobs market by 2024.
But outside the report timeframe, the employment trend over the last 12 months has gone in the other direction since its 2024 peak, with Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR) concluding that Australia had around 950,000 tech workers as of May 2025, a loss of around 50,000 jobs, or 5% of the workforce, and that the sector was “not on track” to meet the 1.2 million tech jobs target.
“The measure was not met as the trajectory is not on track to reach the target by 2030,” DISR said in late 2025.
“A decline in [three] successive quarters throughout [2025] indicates a potential ongoing trend.”
While the Productivity Engine report put indirect tech adoption front and centre of the growth story, DISR found the opposite in its report, released last November.
“There was also a 3.6% reduction in technology jobs in technology industries, which was consistent with global trends, and a 3.2% reduction in non‑technology jobs in technology industries over the same period,” the department said.
Industries such as energy, healthcare, and education had seen increases in the past eight quarters, but DISR found the drop in technology jobs “aligned more closely with declines in some traditional industries”.
These included information, media, and telecommunications (down 6.9%), manufacturing (down 2.3%), and administrative services (down 2%).
More AI disruption suggests an acceleration of the negative trend.
The TCA report says tech workers contribute on average $50,000 more, annually, to the economy than workers
in other industries, and that the direct tech sector generates $317,000 in Gross Value Added (GVA) per hour making second only to mining, which has its own share of billionaire owners.
The primary data source for the report was 2025 ABS data from the Business Longitudinal Analysis Data Environment (BLADE).
The Technology as Australia’s Productivity Engine report is available here.
