Australia’s Fastest-Growing Jobs 2026

Australia’s Fastest‑Growing Jobs Reveal a Deeper Workforce Problem And Oncore Has Been Calling It for Years

For the past three years, Oncore has been analysing and commenting on Australia’s “Jobs on the Rise” trends, not because job lists are interesting in themselves, but because they reveal how work is actually being delivered beneath the surface.

Each year the same pattern emerges clearly:

• Technical capability continues to accelerate

• Regulatory and risk oversight expands

• Specialist and project‑based roles grow faster than permanent headcount

• Organisations struggle to govern how this talent is engaged

These aren’t isolated microtrends, they point to a structural shift in how work gets done.

The latest labour data confirms a position we’ve held for some time: the biggest workforce risk today isn’t talent scarcity, it’s engagement structure.

The Rise of AI Jobs  And the Hidden Complexity It Creates

Artificial intelligence jobs aren’t just headline grabbers, they reflect a profound shift in organisational capability requirements.

According to PwC’s 2025 Global AI Jobs Barometer, workers in AI‑related roles now command an average 56% wage premium globally, up sharply from last year. Industries most exposed to AI are also seeing three times higher growth in revenue per employee than those less exposed.

Even here in Australia, job postings requiring AI skills have grown significantly over the past decade, with demand rising sharply across sectors like financial services and information technology.

But here’s the part most reports gloss over:
Very few organisations build all this capability internally. Instead, we see a growing reliance on:

• Contractors brought in to quickly launch AI capability

• Interim leaders designing strategy

• Statement‑of‑Work consultants delivering transformation programs

This surge in specialist, non‑employee roles isn’t a minor detail, it’s fundamentally reshaping workforce models and increasing governance risk.

That’s the gap Oncore sits directly in: infrastructure that lets organisations move fast without losing control.

Risk, Legal and Regulatory Roles Are Growing And It’s Not an Accident

Alongside AI roles, some of the fastest‑growing jobs in Australia include:

• Chief Risk Officer

• Legal Director

• Regulatory Affairs Consultant

• Tax Specialist

• Head of Environment, Health & Safety

These aren’t random outliers, they are logical outcomes of how organisations are operating:

• AI capability being deployed at scale

• More contractors and specialised workers engaged

• Expansion into new markets and compliance regimes

Externally, this trend aligns with rising regulatory scrutiny on workforce models, including increased penalties for worker misclassification and growing government focus on sham contracting and labour‑hire compliance. Many countries, including here in Australia, are tightening rules around independent contractor engagement to protect workers and tax systems.

What this means internally is a surge in specialist governance roles, often themselves engaged as contractors or advisors.

The irony?
Organisations are hiring risk professionals to manage risk created by poorly governed workforce models.

Oncore removes that contradiction by centralising compliance, classification and engagement oversight across the extended workforce.

Specialist Growth Is Fueled by Non‑Permanent Work

One of the most overlooked insights from job growth data is that many of these roles aren’t being filled as permanent employees.

External data underscores this shift:

• Independent workers now make up nearly 30% of the Australian workforce

• Contractor hiring has grown significantly in recent years

• Over 40% of organisations expect contingent labour to grow faster than permanent headcount in the coming years

These trends show up again and again, including in LinkedIn’s workforce research, which finds that 83% of Australian business leaders see AI adoption as a strategic priority, yet recruiting talent with the right capabilities remains a major challenge. itwire.com

Roles like:

• Power System Engineers

• Strategic Partnerships Managers

• Media Directors

• Heads of Sales

• Organisational Development Managers

are increasingly engaged on fixed‑term contracts, through agencies, or via SOW providers.

The result?
Fragmented onboarding, inconsistent agreements, insurance gaps, and limited enterprise‑level visibility, all of which increase operational risk.

Oncore provides a single system of record for all these engagements, regardless of how workers are sourced or paid.

Training Isn’t Keeping Pace, So Organisations Lean on Contractors

Another consistent theme in external research is the gap between skills demand and workforce readiness.

For example:

• Only 41% of Australian workers believe their workplace is prepared for AI adoption, below the global average.

• Many organisations report they lack the training infrastructure to keep pace with AI‑driven change.

This helps explain why businesses increasingly “rent” capability rather than build it:

• Contractors bridge immediate skills gaps

• SOW engagements increase without long‑term workforce planning

Without proper oversight infrastructure, this creates:

• Hidden cost overruns

• Classification exposure

• Loss of intellectual property

• Audit risk

Oncore lets organisations scale specialist capability with visibility, control and confidence, across every engagement type.

Jobs on the Rise Should Be Read as a Workforce Risk Forecast

At Oncore, we don’t read growth data as career advice.

We read it as a forward‑looking risk forecast.

Every rapidly growing role introduces:

• New engagement models

• New compliance obligations

• New dependencies on non‑employee workers

When AI, regulatory, engineering and leadership roles all grow simultaneously, the signal is clear:

Complexity is increasing faster than governance.

Workforce models are lagging behind business strategy and that gap is where risk comes from.

Why Oncore Is Built for This Moment

Traditional HR systems were designed for employees.
Recruitment platforms were designed for hiring.
Finance systems were designed for payroll.

But the modern workforce doesn’t fit into those boxes.

Oncore was built for everything in between.

We help organisations by:

• Centralising contractor and contingent workforce data

• Managing compliance, classification and payment workflows

• Providing visibility across PAYG, contractor and SOW models

• Reducing operational friction while increasing control

As Australia’s fastest‑growing jobs continue to sit outside traditional employment structures, Oncore becomes not optional, but essential.