Privacy Jobs in Australia: 2025 Year in Review Report

This report summarises the findings from Privacy 108’s Quarterly Job Reports for 2025 and provides a consolidated annual analysis of the Australian privacy employment market. It draws on the 2025 Job Posting Data and quarterly reports to identify broader trends shaping the profession.

The Australian privacy job market in 2025 was characterised by moderating job volumes, steadily increasing salaries, and expanding technical expectations.

Across the year:

• 419 privacy roles were advertised in total.
• Quarterly averages declined from 38 roles per month in Q1 to 31 per month in Q4 .
• Average advertised salaries rose progressively from $134,000 in Q1 to $148,000 in Q4.
• Government remained the dominant hiring sector throughout the year (ranging from 28%–41% of advertised roles).
• Compliance-focused roles continued to dominate, although the scope of responsibilities increasingly included AI governance, privacy engineering and data risk.

While hiring volumes softened—particularly in the final quarter—the upward salary trend and the rise of specialist roles signal continued strategic investment in privacy capability.

Our quarterly job reports are available here:

• Privacy Jobs Report Q1 2025
• Privacy Job Report Q2 2025
• Privacy Job Report Q3 2025
• Privacy Job Report Q4 2025

Number of Jobs Advertised

A total of 419 privacy jobs were advertised each month in 2025.  This total figure includes cases where the same position was advertised across more than 1 month.

Table 1: Number of jobs advertised per month in 2025, based on the jobs advertised around the 23rd of each month.

The number of jobs advertised has been decreasing over the year, although the number of advertised jobs is always low in the last quarter of the year, before the traditional end of year break.

Table 2: Number of jobs advertised by quarter in 2025, based on the jobs advertised around the 23rd of each month

Trends and Observations

• Q1 was the strongest hiring quarter, consistent with post-holiday recruitment cycles .
• Q2 and Q3 stabilised at 35 roles per month .
• Q4 saw a seasonal dip, with December dropping to 19–20 roles .

Overall, the year reflects a gradual softening rather than a contraction, with demand remaining relatively consistent across the middle quarters.

Location of Jobs

Privacy roles in 2025 remained heavily concentrated in capital cities.

• Between 80–82% of roles were located in capital cities across Q2–Q4 .
• Sydney consistently led hiring, reaching 40% of advertised roles in Q4 .
• Melbourne and Brisbane remained significant secondary markets.

Regional roles remained limited throughout the year.

Who is Advertising (Job Sectors)

Government remained the largest employer of privacy professionals throughout 2025:

Professional Services and Corporate sectors consistently rounded out the top three hiring sectors. Banking and Financial Services fluctuated but returned to prominence in Q4.

Late 2025 also saw increased hiring linked to AI governance and privacy technology, including Federal Government AI Safety initiatives and research roles in privacy technology.

Job Titles

Leadership demand remained steady throughout the year:

• 36% of roles in Q1 were for senior leaders or managers.
• Approximately one-third of roles targeted senior candidates in Q2–Q4.

Privacy Officer roles remained consistently strong (23–34% depending on quarter).

Q3 saw a rise in “Privacy Specialist” titles, although responsibilities were often equivalent to Privacy Officer or Manager roles.

By Q4, there was noticeable growth in specialist and technical titles—Analysts, Engineers, Researchers—often contract roles requiring blended privacy, data risk and technical expertise .

Full-Time, Part-Time and Contract Positions

Privacy roles remained predominantly full-time:

• 72–79% full-time across the year .
• Contract roles ranged from 17–21%, increasing slightly in Q4 .
• Part-time roles remained low at 2–6% .

Contracting was most common in specialist or technical roles requiring targeted expertise.

Flexible Working

Hybrid and flexible working arrangements are now embedded in the privacy profession:

• 50–60% of roles referenced hybrid/WFH arrangements in early 2025 .
• This peaked at 78% in Q3 .
• Q4 maintained strong flexibility at 66% .

Flexible work is no longer a differentiator—it is an expectation.

Salaries

A defining feature of 2025 was salary growth despite declining job numbers.

The most common permanent salary band remained $126,000–$175,000 (incl. super) .

Top-end salaries increased during the year:

• $220k–$240k plus bonus in Q1 and Q2
• $250k plus bonus in Q4

Contract rates remained strong at approximately $800+ per day where disclosed .

The steady salary growth reflects sustained competition for experienced practitioners and leaders, particularly those with hybrid compliance–technology capability.

Expanding Responsibilities

Compliance remained the dominant functional focus across 2025 (73–83% of roles in early quarters) .

However, the scope of privacy roles expanded significantly to include:

• AI governance and AI safety oversight
• Privacy engineering and PETs
• Data loss prevention (DLP) and data risk management
• Enterprise data governance leadership

Experience expectations remained high:

• Over one-third of roles required at least 3+ years’ experience .
• 10–11% required more than eight years’ experience .

Certification demand fluctuated:

• Around one-third of corporate roles referenced certifications earlier in the year .
• Only 12% of roles mentioned certifications in Q4 .

Employers appear increasingly focused on demonstrated capability—particularly technical and governance expertise—rather than credentials alone.

Overall 2025 Outlook

The 2025 privacy employment market can be summarised as:

• Moderating job volumes
• Rising salaries
• Strong and consistent government demand
• Capital city concentration with embedded hybrid work
• Growing integration of AI governance and technical privacy skills

Although total advertised roles declined over the year, privacy remains a strategically important function. The increasing prominence of AI safety, privacy engineering and data governance signals a profession continuing to evolve—both in scope and seniority.

As we move into 2026, key questions include:

• Will hiring volumes stabilise or rebound in Q1?
• Will AI-related responsibilities become embedded across most privacy roles?
• Will certification demand return as regulatory expectations sharpen?

Privacy professionals who combine compliance expertise with technical fluency and AI governance capability are likely to remain in strongest demand.

Our Methodology As part of our ongoing research into the state of the Australian privacy profession, Privacy 108 analyses the privacy job market, comparing on-line job adverts monthly. Job listings provide a useful snapshot into how both private and public sector organisations value privacy, the resources they are willing to commit to developing and managing privacy programs, and to building their privacy maturity. A list of all positions with ‘privacy manager’ and ‘privacy officer’ in the title is compiled from jobs advertised on www.seek.com.au, and LinkedIn on a selected date each month. These lists are then analysed.  From December 2018 to July 2021 the job surveys were conducted on a quarterly basis only. Commencing in August 2021 we began taking monthly (rather than quarterly) snapshots. This will help us identify, for instance, jobs that are advertised for more than 30 days. Linked In job ads were also only added to the analysis from August 2021.  Data from every month and from all job advertising platforms we \ survey (Linked In and Seek) are included in our charts and analysis in this report, with the exception of the quarterly trend charts. In order to continue comparing trends from when we commenced surveying the job market in Dec 2018, these quarterly trend charts are based only on the snapshot numbers for the quarterly months of March, June, September and December.