The NSW Digital Skills and Workforce Compact is a partnership between the NSW Government, industry, and providers of education and training. The initiative brings a collaborative approach to addressing the projected shortfall of 85,000 digital workforce jobs in NSW by 2030. The Compact aims to transform the digital skills ecosystem in NSW through developing six pillars of action:

• Perceptions of digital careers;
• Pipeline of digital talent;
• Widening participation in the digital workforce;
• Up-skilling and re-skilling; and
• Training relevance.

Participants in the digital skills ecosystem include education providers, government agencies, and employers relying on digital talent. They include employers in the tech industry, those considered ‘tech-adjacent’, and those across all sectors with a wide range of digital skills needs. Many of those employers are small and medium-sized businesses. SMEs comprise 99.5% of all employers in NSW, supporting roughly 82.7% of jobs across the state. Business NSW therefore has a prominent role in the Compact in ensuring small and medium employers are not left behind as influential stakeholders in the tech sector work together to enhance the digital capabilities of the NSW workforce. 

The next phase of this initiative provides opportunities to consider how these may assist small and medium-sized businesses across NSW in meeting their digital skills needs.

Opportunities for doing so in 2025 include:

• Assisting in campaigns promoting digital careers;
• Sharing case studies and resources for good practice in improving diversity of participation in digital careers;
• Supporting the continued development of targeted up-skilling and re-skilling opportunities; and
• Ensuring the relevance of education and training opportunities with the digital skills needs of small and medium-sized employers.