Session 2.7d: Update - Defence Workforce Trends: Insights for Strategic Planning
Tracks
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| Wednesday, November 19, 2025 |
| 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM |
| Nicholls Theatre |
Details
Drawing on Kinexus’ Defence Industry Insights – 11th Edition, this presentation offers an overview of salary trends, workforce supply and demand, and hiring intentions across the Australian defence sector.
With major defence projects underway nationwide, the session highlights where critical skill shortages are emerging and how they’re impacting project delivery timelines, cost pressures, and workforce retention. Attendees will gain insight into candidate sentiment, salary expectations, and current job market activity, along with practical advice for strategic workforce planning.
Whether attendees are responsible for building teams, delivering projects, or shaping future capabilities, this session will equip them with the intelligence needed to address workforce challenges and align talent strategies with national defence priorities.
Key focus areas include:
Project Environment
• Analysis of current defence activity and the influence of adjacent industries.
Worker Supply
• Identification of high-demand skill sets.
• Insights into workforce size, location, and employment by industry.
• Mismatches between supply and demand.
Salaries & Expectations
• Current remuneration trends.
• Factors influencing attraction and retention of talent.
Supply Solutions
• Strategies to better utilise the existing workforce.
• Opportunities to expand the talent pool through current and potential initiatives.
Skilled workers are a fundamental input to capability, and innovative, forward-looking solutions are essential to reducing the risk of future workforce shortfalls.
Speaker
Mr Raj Kutty
Founder & Managing Director
Kinexus
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Biography
Raj Kutty is a founding member of Kinexus and has over 25 years’ experience supporting Australia’s defence industry through providing recruitment, workforce and capability solutions.
As the Founder of Kinexus, Raj established Australia’s first recruitment agency dedicated to defence industry workforce requirements in 2001. Over the past two decades, Kinexus has grown to operate nationally, with offices in Sydney and Melbourne, placing ICT and engineering professionals across every major Defence hub and several niche locations nationally.
The team at Kinexus is the most experienced defence industry recruitment team in Australia and has used that experience to develop the Defence Industry Insights report, which is used as a trusted reference across Defence, government and industry to understand workforce demographics, skills, and salary trends, and to provide information that helps de-risk projects and capability delivery.
As a leader of an SME in the defence sector, Raj has experienced firsthand the ebbs and flows of Defence programs and the effect these cycles have on workforce availability and stability. He continues to work closely with government, primes, and SMEs to ensure organisations can access and retain the right skills at the right time to meet Defence’s evolving capability needs.
