It’s easy to mistake quiet for contentment. But Brisbane’s tech workforce in 2025 is quietly recalibrating.

According to Talenza’s latest Tech & Transformation Talent Outlook, 58.8% of Brisbane tech professionals plan to change jobs in the next 12 months. That’s the highest intent across all major cities. Yet just 39.2% actually moved last year, the lowest mobility rate in the country.

That’s not apathy. It’s assessment. Brisbane’s tech talent is scanning the market, weighing their next step, and looking for the right mix of growth, leadership, and life alignment before they make a move.

For employers, this “scanning gap” is the real opening. It’s the pause where you can prove that staying is the better decision (before someone else does).

In this guide, we’ll explore:

• Who Brisbane’s tech professionals are (and what they really want in 2025)
• The motivations and dealbreakers shaping their next career decisions
• What high-retention employers are doing differently in a market where stability still matters, but purpose is catching up fast

Because in Brisbane’s tech scene, retention is improved by giving them a role they can see themselves growing in – without giving up the life they moved here for.

Ready to meet them where they are? Let’s start with the data.

Who’s in the market – and what they’re thinking

Brisbane’s tech workforce in 2025 is experienced, steady-handed, and making its next moves with intent. This is not a high-churn, impulsive market. It’s a market where people pause, assess, and only step when the offer is right – which makes understanding who’s in it, and what they care about, the first step to attracting them.

The TTTO data paints a clear picture:

• Gen Y dominates at 43.79%, shaping delivery, leadership, and decision-making across projects.
• Gen X follows at 46.41%, bringing enterprise memory, technical depth, and mentorship skills that steady transformation programs.
• Gen Z sits at 4.58%, a small but influential group whose digital-first mindset often influences workplace norms beyond their headcount.
• Boomers are now just 5.23%, signalling a generational handover already underway.

When it comes to seniority, 32% are senior-level specialists and 19.6% are in management. In other words, you’re mostly speaking to professionals who’ve proven their capability, have clear expectations, and are weighing both career progression and lifestyle alignment before committing to a move.

One standout: Brisbane’s gender split sits at 65.4% male and 32.7% female. That’s still a notable imbalance, but female participation has jumped from 28.1% last year. For employers, this is both a progress marker and a prompt. Your next competitive edge in attraction could come from visible, credible commitment to inclusive leadership and career progression pathways that reflect the diversity of your teams.

Despite cost-of-living pressures, salary isn’t the top driver in Brisbane right now. The top three concerns for 2025 are:

1. Maintaining work-life balance (21.1%)
2. Boosting my salary (11.27%)
3. Getting a promotion/career pathways (nearly 11.27%)

That’s a telling mix. Salary and progression now sit side-by-side as clear priorities, but balance still leads (and by quite a lot). Employers must support their people in balancing salary and ambition with a sustainable life.

This is a workforce making measured moves. They’re scanning the market for signals: Will this role increase my value – both in skills and in the market? Will I see a clear pathway to step up without burning out? Will the rewards match the contribution I’m making? If your EVP doesn’t answer all three, you’ll lose them to the employer who does.

Now, let’s dig into the data and look closer at what’s really motivating that intent to move. (Spoiler: it’s not just salary.)

Why work-life balance still wins in Brisbane

Let’s be honest: “work-life balance” has been slapped on employer brands for over a decade. But in 2025, Brisbane’s tech workforce is looking for proof.

According to the TTTO, flexible working arrangements (63.38%) and work-life balance (52.82%) are the top two drivers of employer appeal in Brisbane, with salary trailing behind at 50.70%. That ranking alone should shift how you frame your EVP. Here, balance doesn’t mean “more days at home.” It means “less friction to do great work.”

It’s an operating principle. And your most experienced people are watching how you uphold it.

This is a city where career decisions aren’t driven by hype. Brisbane’s tech professionals are strategic, seasoned, and often juggling deep delivery responsibilities alongside family, caregiving, or community roles. So, when they evaluate an employer, they’re not asking, “Can I work from home?” They’re asking:

• Will I be respected as an adult contributor with a life outside work?
• Does this team structure support flow, or am I walking into chaos?
• Do leaders protect capacity, or perform flexibility while rewarding burnout?

And let’s be clear: these aren’t soft questions. They’re commercial ones. Balance is a delivery strategy.

When teams aren’t burnt out, they stay. They think. They flag risks earlier. They lead others better. And when over 50% of your workforce sits in a senior or manager role, you’re not just attracting talent. You’re inheriting influence. That kind of capability needs room to operate well.

So what does that actually look like?

High-retention employers in Brisbane are playing a smarter game

The employers holding onto Brisbane’s top tech talent are embedding balance, clarity, and trust into the way work happens. Four themes stand out.

1. They engineer balance into delivery, not policy

Offering flexible hours is surface-level. The real retention work happens in how teams design their weeks: when collaboration happens, when deep work is protected, and how escalation paths avoid pulling people into a permanent “on” setting.

In these teams, capacity is forecast with the same discipline as budget. That means more predictable flow and space for people to sustain high performance without burning out.

2. They make manager capability a non-negotiable

Flexibility collapses without credible leadership. The employers doing it well are investing in manager calibration – not just process compliance, but the judgment to know when to bend and when to hold firm. They’re coaching leaders to model boundaries that people can trust, because in Brisbane’s tight-knit market, the signal comes from behaviour, not slogans.

3. They treat balance as a performance metric

The best teams don’t wait for exit interviews to find out balance was the breaking point. They track it in real time, using lead indicators like workload spikes, consecutive stretch assignments, or slow recovery after major delivery. By linking these signals directly to retention risk, they can intervene before pressure tips into attrition.

4. They operate in full view

Brisbane’s tech talent is quick to spot performance theatre. The employers who keep them don’t over-promise – they show their working. That means documented expectations on availability, visible respect for boundaries from senior leaders, and open conversations about trade-offs when the delivery calendar is packed.

The through-line? These employers don’t just say they value balance; they operationalise it. For a workforce quietly redefining what “good” looks like, that’s the marker of a place worth staying.

Next, we’ll look at how the most adaptive employers in Brisbane are evolving their EVP – not with perks, but with precision.

How to rebuild your EVP for Brisbane’s tech market

With today’s tech talent, an EVP can’t be an annual campaign or a careers page update. It has to function like infrastructure – embedded in how you hire, lead, and retain. And the best ones right now are being rebuilt with four priorities front and centre.

1. Start with the data, not the deck

High-performing employers are mapping their EVP against what Brisbane talent actually values now, not what they valued three years ago. TTTO data makes it clear:

• 63.4% want flexible working arrangements.
• 52.8% expect a good work-life balance.
• Salary comes third at 50.7%, followed closely by wellbeing (40.1%) and strong leadership (39.4%).

If your EVP leans heavily on perks but doesn’t address those top drivers with proof, you’re building on sand. Start by asking: Does our current offer clearly and measurably deliver on these? If not, fix the operating model before you refresh the messaging.

2. Make flexibility operational, not optional

Flexibility is more than a policy – it’s a deal-breaker. Your EVP needs to show exactly how flexibility works here:

• Clear hybrid models with defined collaboration windows
• Guardrails to prevent “always-on” creep
• Role design that supports different life stages, caregiving needs, and energy rhythms

When flexibility is operationalised, it sends the clearest retention signal you can give: we trust you to deliver without over-policing how you do it.

3. Connect leadership behaviour to EVP credibility

Strong leadership is in the top five drivers for Brisbane talent. But that only counts if leaders embody the EVP in practice. That means:

• Salary transparency in review cycles
• Leaders actively modelling work-life boundaries
• Inclusive leadership that reflects the workforce makeup (and shifts it where needed)

With 62.5% male and 35.94% female representation in Brisbane’s tech sector, leadership diversity isn’t just a DEI target. It’s part of the EVP’s proof set.

4. Build visible growth pathways

Finding a new job and upskilling are Brisbane’s top two concerns for 2025. That’s your cue to make internal progression so clear and appealing that people don’t have to look elsewhere.

Think: public project rotation schedules, lateral move options that grow skills without forcing people into management, and learning programs linked to emerging tech and transformation priorities. In a slower mobility market, the promise of growth inside the business is one of the few levers that can shift intent into loyalty.

The takeaway for leaders? Use your systems and leadership behaviour to prove that your offer lines up with what talent values most right now.

When people can see that alignment in the way work is designed, led, and rewarded, they stop scanning for their next move and start picturing their next step with you.

Final thoughts: Closing the scanning gap

Brisbane talent is scanning, weighing options, and looking for the signals that say, this is a place I can grow without trading away balance or stability.

For employers, your opportunity is right there in the pause between intent and action. That’s your moment to prove, through leadership behaviour, role design, and transparent growth pathways, that your EVP is more than a promise.

Trust is earned through systems that match what people value most. When you get that right, you don’t just retain talent, you compound it. High performers bring in other high performers. Teams build rhythm. Delivery becomes predictable.

And in a market where stability is currency, that kind of momentum is the real competitive edge.

Where to go from here:

• Download the Talenza 2025 Tech & Transformation Talent Outlook for the full insights and national comparisons.
• Book a strategy session with our Brisbane team to audit your EVP against the city’s current retention drivers.
• Partner with Tranzformd to connect with the high-calibre professionals driving Brisbane’s transformation agenda.