Closing the nation’s AI skills gap

Source Domain: www.afr.com

The result is a widening gap between what organisations need and what traditional pathways are producing. Sonia Eland, executive vice president and country manager for Australia and New Zealand at HCLTech, says the pace of change is outstripping the ability of many education models to adapt.

“The main driver is the pace of change,” she says. “Traditional education pathways continue to play an important role, but they were not built for an environment where AI tools, cyber threats and enterprise use cases are evolving so quickly.”

Employers are increasingly seeking people who can operate across technical and commercial domains, applying tools in real business contexts. Eland says this is creating a gap in roles that require both technical capability and real-world context.

This is prompting a shift in how workforce capability is developed. Industry-led skilling initiatives are becoming more prominent, designed to bring immediacy and relevance to learning.

“Industry-led initiatives bring immediacy and relevance,” Eland says. “They allow learners to build skills using current tools and real business scenarios, rather than relying only on theory.”

These approaches are also changing the structure of learning itself. Eland says modular programs, applied projects and co-designed pathways are helping combine technical knowledge with practical experience, particularly in areas such as AI and cybersecurity where real-world context is critical.

“From our perspective, the focus is on building capability that can be applied in real environments, securely and responsibly,” she says.

Collaboration between universities and industry is becoming a central part of this shift. Universities continue to provide foundational knowledge and research capability, while industry brings insight into emerging technologies and workforce needs.

At The University of Western Australia, this intersection is seen as essential to keeping education aligned with a rapidly changing labour…

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