Blog

​ It’s no secret that Canberra is the centre for Australian politics but, as our country’s government, Canberra is home to all the trappings of an international city, from world-class restaurants, galleries, universities and museums to offices for a number of international heavyweight businesses.

It stands to reason, then, that Canberra is home to a huge SAP presence. Many of the ‘big’ consultancies working in Australia have representation in the capital, including CSC, PLAUT, SAP itself, Accenture and Fujitsu, and the city is the location for one of the Southern Hemisphere’s larges SAP CRM projects, with over 100 CRM professionals on the job.

So what does this mean for SAP jobseekers considering a move to our nation’s capital? Well as with any move, there are a number of key issues to keep in mind. And (again, as with any move) many of these are specific to the city in question. We’ve addressed a few here.

The government factor

This is Canberra’s ‘unique thing’. Even newcomers to Australian shores are aware that Canberra, for all its idyllic locality and flawless town planning (more on that later) is where the Australian Government is located. This means that around 40% of jobs in the city are either government jobs or ‘complementary’ positions – that is, jobs that service the government but are not on their payroll.

Working for the government can be very different to working in a corporate environment for a number of reasons, but the most obvious (and occasionally challenging) of these is sign off procedures. While many consultants agree that, on the job, there is not much technical difference between working for a corporate or government client in terms of time constraints, pressure and the like, when it comes to decision-making and budget allocation, the government wheels can take longer to turn. The reason for this is fairly obvious and understandable: there have to be many people accountable when the funding for a project comes from taxpayer money, whereas in a private business sometimes even one shot-caller can be enough to get a project completed from end to end.

Lifestyle

Canberra is an incredibly beautiful and livable city, and this is no accident. The city’s layout was decided over a century ago via an international design competition that called on entrants to create a truly unique blueprint for Australia’s capital city. The winning entry came from American designers Walter and Marion Burley Griffin, whose vision was for a ‘garden city’ that would grow and evolve over time. That vision has come to fruition, resulting in a gorgeous city that is easy to use (known as ‘the 20 minute city’, traffic is not a problem here). A stone’s throw from the iconic Australian Outback, the city is lush and flourishing, full of parks, waterways and those galleries and museums we mentioned earlier.

Career Prospects

As we noted earlier, there are a range of SAP-oriented consultancies working in Canberra as we speak but, in addition to that, the city boasts over 25,000 businesses of all shapes and sizes – meaning there is always room for more SAP professionals. Best of all, Canberra boasts Australia’s highest average salary – even more than mining states Queensland, NT and WA.

So there you have it! If you are interested in a change of scenery and perhaps want to dial down the ‘rat race’ element in your life, forget the big centres and consider Canberra as your next home. With academics, enterprises and government departments galore, it is screaming out for more SAP within its bounds.

*Shameless plug* Call Jack Bland from Speller International about all our vacant Canberra positions.