Australia Job Market 2026: Fields, Cities and Skills

Searching for a job in Australia and finding the same few listings over and over? The pool is smaller than in Canada or the UK, and that is worth knowing before you plan your week. As of November 5, 2026, JobRise tracks 7,103 open jobs in Australia, and 4,262 of them (60%) were posted in the last 30 days. The Australia job market in 2026 is small, but it is still moving, so the job is to pick your fields and cities carefully and widen the search where it makes sense.

What this data covers#

The honest starting point: JobRise tracks 7,103 open jobs in Australia, far fewer than the 55,516 in Canada or the 72,560 in the United Kingdom. Treat this as a narrow snapshot, not the full market. These are jobs JobRise collects from employer career pages and public job boards. The full report is at /en/reports/hiring/australia/.

The largest sources are Careers Vic (1,616 listings, 23%), Workday (1,596, 22%), Workable (1,410, 20%), Himalayas (942, 13%) and Greenhouse (715, 10%). Careers Vic does not mark remote roles, while Workday and Himalayas do. The 29% remote share only uses sources that mark remote work, so Careers Vic's 1,616 listings are not part of that count.

JobRise started tracking on October 14, 2026. Jobs already open then have no known posting date (691 jobs), so they are left out of the new-job counts. Still, 1,008 jobs (14% of open jobs) were new in the last 7 days.

When the new jobs came in#

Australia's posting pattern is lumpy. The busiest posting day in the last 30 days was October 15, 2026, with 596 new jobs. That spike mostly reflects when JobRise added new job sources, so do not read it as the day employers hired most.

Outside that day, the counts swing a lot. Each day from October 27 to October 30 had between 270 and 286 new jobs, and November 4 had 288. Other days were much quieter, such as October 25 (24) and October 31 (22). Daily counts include only jobs still open, so the quiet days look smaller than they were. The first bar, November 5 (119), is a partial day.

Australia job market 2026 by field#

Healthcare is the biggest field, with 894 open jobs (13%). Sales (11%), operations (8.9%) and education (8.4%) come next.

Categories come from job titles and departments using keyword rules, so treat each one as a best guess from the wording. Another 1,094 jobs (15%) sit in "Other" because the rules could not classify them. That is not a field, so it is not in the table.

Software is 508 jobs, about 7.2% of the market. With a pool this size, a few hundred tech roles mean fewer matches per search, so a tech skill next to sales, operations or healthcare may open more doors than a pure tech profile.

Australia job market 2026 by city and employer#

Sydney has the most openings, with 1,308 jobs (18%). Melbourne is next at 744 (10%), then Brisbane (2.7%), Perth (2.5%) and Canberra (1.7%).

The data also lists Melbourne's inner, northern, western and southern suburbs as separate lines (for example, Melbourne CBD and Inner Metro suburbs has 482 jobs). Those lines are part of the Melbourne count, so do not add them to the Melbourne total on top of it.

Remote is a bigger slice here than in the other two countries. Of the 3,964 jobs from sources that mark remote work, 29% are remote (1,167 jobs). The remote count only includes roles limited to applicants in Australia, but read each posting's location and work rights before you apply.

Government schools is the biggest single employer, with 613 open jobs (8.6%). Mediix follows with 368 (5.2%), and it lists occupational therapy roles. Iqvia (131), MMC (114) and the Department of Justice and Community Safety (108) come next. The top 15 employers together hold 30% of all open jobs, so a small pool is also concentrated in fewer employers than in Canada or the UK.

Government schools and the Department of Justice and Community Safety sit at the top of the employer list, next to private firms such as Iqvia (131), MMC (114), Hitachi (78) and Capgemini (76). Mediix lists mostly occupational therapy roles, including one in Perth, so if that is your field, its postings are the place to start.

Expect to see the same names again and again. That is a sign of the pool's size, not of a bad search.

Skills Australian employers ask for in 2026#

The skills data names skills in 7,057 of the open jobs, so it covers almost the whole pool. Skills are ranked by how many different companies name them. The 30-day change compares the skill's share of jobs posted in the last 30 days with its share in the 30 days before.

The report marks five skills as rising: three in healthcare, one in data and one in finance.

Patient care and elderly care are worth a look if you have a healthcare background. Paediatric care also stands out inside healthcare, with 165 open jobs, marked as up 111% in the 30-day change.

Inside the main fields:

• Sales: CRM (128 companies, 21% of sales jobs, up 72%), Prospecting (109) and Salesforce (103).
• Software: AWS (64 companies), Python (64) and CI/CD (61).
• Data and AI: Python (45 companies), Machine learning (35) and Large language models (34, up 70%).

What to do this week#

1. Widen your fields a little. With 7,103 jobs in the pool, a search on one job title will run out fast. Add a related field, such as operations or project management, next to your main one.
2. Start with Sydney and Melbourne, then check remote. Sydney has 1,308 jobs and Melbourne has 744. Remote roles are 1,167 of the 3,964 that mark remote work, so they are worth a daily check.
3. Use the skills that come up most. If you work in sales or operations, CRM, Salesforce, project management and stakeholder management are the terms to match. Use them exactly where they are true, and run one posting through the free ATS check.
4. Tailor each application. With a small pool, a clear match matters more. Read how to tailor your resume for each job before you send ten applications in one go.
5. Decode the hard postings. If a posting uses terms you do not know, paste it into the job description decoder.
6. Write a short, specific note. Use the cover letter tool for each role, and send a short message to a recruiter with the cold email guide.
7. Check the newest listings first. 1,008 jobs were posted in the last 7 days, so start each day with those, then work back through the other 7,103 open jobs.
8. Browse live listings. See the current jobs at /en/jobs/in/australia/, and check the employer and location on each posting.

Skills by field for Australia are on one page at /en/skills/australia/.

What this data cannot tell you#

The data does not include salaries, work rights or visa rules, or how many people applied to each job. It is also a snapshot from November 5, 2026, and a small one. Read each posting for pay and location, and check official Australian government sources before you plan a move or give up a job. The data can still show you which fields, cities and skills have the most openings right now.

Because the pool is small, a few postings can change your shortlist a lot. Save your searches, check the newest listings every day, and keep a simple list of each job you applied to, with the date and the employer. The posting date is the employer's date when they give one. If they do not, JobRise uses the date it first saw the listing, so a date is a clue, not a guarantee.

Want to see how your resume scores against an Australian posting? Run the free ATS check. Free, no signup.