Smartphone application developers are commanding a 15 to 20 per cent premium in remuneration over standard app developers, hiring experts say.
Launch Recruitment managing director Rebecca Wallace said smartphone app developers were expected to be sought after for the next few years.
"Application developers with specialised skills are certainly in demand and there is not that many of them because it is a new industry," she said.
According to IBISWorld, the smartphone application market is worth almost $300 million in Australia despite being almost non-existent five years ago.
The pay for a smartphone app developer was up to 20 per cent more than a standard app developer, Launch found.
"The junior roles are still pretty on par with their contemporaries in traditional application development," Launch principal consultant Sasha Jensen said.
"It is the more senior people who can hit the ground running that we are seeing the demand for."
Ms Jensen said most roles were contract-based, but permanent opportunities had encouraged contractors to make the switch.
"It is a candidate-driven market, but clients are now starting to understand that and we have seen a little bit of a shift in the adoption of higher salaries for that particular skill set," she said.
Ms Wallace said network administrators, systems administrators, business intelligence professionals, analysts and developers were all in-demand roles.
"A number of IT-related businesses are expanding their cloud service offering and with that comes demand for network administration people and systems administration people."
Launch found security and information storage specialists were also highly sought after.
Ms Wallace said wireless and internet service providers were also growing market segments.
"People who are looking for career growth and potentially are concerned about their employment stability just need to be looking at what the market is doing and up-skilling or transitioning themselves into those growth areas," she said.
