She can code a robot – so why can’t she get a job?

Saturday, 12 July 2025

Growing up on a farm in Dunedin and thinking that only gamers chose to study digital technology, merging farming and tech was not something Imogen Keeling had considered could be her future.

But encouraged by her sister to try a lunchtime code club and fuelled by a passionate teacher in high school, Keeling took up the subject.

Through her digital technology class, she learnt about new machinery in agricultural technology being used to improve sustainability in the industry and decided to pursue a degree in engineering at the University of Canterbury.

“I had originally thought I'd end up in mechatronics, but then I figured out pretty quickly that I'd rather code the robot than build the robot, so that's sort of my path,” she says, in software engineering.

With 800 hours of work experience and having applied for about 30 jobs with no luck so far, her fourth year is quickly nearing completion. “It’s getting a little bit stressful,” Keeling says.

“There aren't many people who are from a farm but also in tech and you need those people who actually have both those understandings.

“It is something that I'd like to have a career in. But also at the same time, for now, I'm just trying to get a job.”

Keeling is one of a slowly declining number of tech students in Aotearoa and also one of many on the hunt for a job in the sector.

Despite a growing tech industry, Mission  Ready, a tertiary education provider specialising in tech careers, recently found an up to 10% decline in students taking tech classes across the motu.

When it comes to diversity, Keeling is also one of fewer women entering the sector.

But diverse thinking is essential, says Mission Ready co‑founder Diana Sharma. “It’s a no‑brainer for businesses to invest in.”

She adds that 92% of Aotearoa job openings in the past year required digital expertise, with a 300% jump in AI‑skill demand on Trade Me and Seek. She expects growth in AI and cyber‑security roles over the next 12 months and forecasts the AI market will hit $206  million in 2025.

Despite this, she worries about the student decline in tech. Year 13 enrolments in NCEA tech subjects fell 2% year-on-year between 2021 and 2023, with Level 3 certificates down 7.6% in 2023 and diploma enrolments down 9.3%.

Meanwhile, at secondary school, the 50% of girls taking technology classes fell to 39% for qualifications and 22% at tertiary level. Women only made up 27% of the industry.

Less than 5% of the tech workforce are Māori and less than 3% Pasifika.

Sharma believes outdated stereotypes of tech jobs persist.

Employers are looking for skills in cloud computing, data analytics, cyber security and AI which can be combined with passions for health, creative sectors and agriculture, she says.

To reverse the trend, Mission Ready is running a pilot programme, offering 100 scholarships to 10 high schools across the country.

A teacher shortage behind decline in students

Louise Ānaru, president of the Secondary Principals’ Association New Zealand, says a shortage of quality teachers continues to be a significant challenge for schools, with a shortfall of more than 500 secondary school teachers in 2025.

Technology teachers are especially in demand and the shortage is severe and persistent, says Ānaru.

Hard materials technology and CAD (Computer-Aided Design) teachers are particularly difficult to find. When schools were unable to hire overseas teachers, accessing online learning or hiring unqualified teachers in many cases led to not offering technology subjects altogether.

Ānaru factors in that trade teachers are often employed on Limited Authority to Teach (LAT) roles that are temporary and paid on the untrained scale. Trade-skilled professionals including construction workers, engineers and designers also receive better paying roles in industry than in teaching.

“Evidence shows a clear decline in student participation in technology subjects in New Zealand secondary schools as a result.”

It has a more pronounced impact on rural areas because of a range of equity issues including access to teachers and resourcing to fund technology subjects, Ānaru explains.

To some extent, digital skills were increasingly being integrated across subject areas, but the depth, consistency, and quality of integration vary significantly between schools, teachers, and regions.

For all learners to leave school with digital fluency and adaptability, treating digital capability like literacy or numeracy, is important, she says.

Curriculum changes, including NCEA, take years to develop and implement and keeping up with the scale of global technology developments is a collective challenge.

“Schools need to be provided with adequate resourcing to upskill teachers to be able to implement new changes – at pace.”

Ministry of Education hautū (leader) education workforce, Anna Welanyk, says schools’ provision of technology at years 11-13, when it is no longer compulsory, can vary for a number of reasons, including staffing availability.

“We are aware that there is an ongoing shortage of qualified teachers in STEM subjects and the ministry has initiatives in place to grow supply in those shortage areas.”

Last year, the teacher workforce grew by 2.5% with 1128 new teachers in primary and 736 in secondary, Welanyk says.

Producing and retaining local talent

Meanwhile, the tech sector is heavily populated by visa holders.

Toi Mai’s tech report, published in October, found 45% of 120,000 employees in tech are on visas while there has been a decline in New Zealand citizens since 2015.

Despite this, the sector – both in terms of companies and technologist roles – has continually grown.

The report found training has not kept up with industry growth or needs and there is a need for greater digital literacy in Aotearoa. Private training enterprises train nearly half the sector.

It also found that targeting and funding specific technology qualifications increased enrolments, pathways should start at primary school and be integrated into the community, and role models play a key role in inspiring rangatahi interest in technology.

Equity is important for the long-term sustainability of the sector, the report said. Hiring practices need to be reformed and more inclusive to attract diverse talent, while tāngata whaikaha (disabled people) have super powers often overlooked by industry.

A look into a slice of the tech sector

In the gaming sector, PikPok chief technology officer Jeremy Burgess says the majority of his team are New Zealanders.

Graduates are also almost all Kiwi but the more senior positions are 'absolutely difficult to find people locally – and in general”, he says.

And there is not nearly as much diversity as he would like.

The small but successful company stopped taking interns but has always had the bandwidth to train people on the job, which is fundamental, Burgess says, and has always taken on graduates.

The industry saw a 26% growth last year and is on course to be a billion-dollar industry in the next few years. “It may not mean that much to someone who’s in Year 11 but it does mean those opportunities are going to grow.”

Government support, like the Game Development Software Rebate, part of a $40m annual fund to support the game development sector, helps, particularly in a challenging global climate with lower consumer spending, he says.

It is unclear how AI will change the gaming industry but despite only being “a slice of the tech sector”, he doesn’t believe the fears it will take over entry roles.

“I also think it's quite short-sighted for anyone who's thinking in that way, because we can't have seniors in the future without having juniors now.

“We have to have a pipeline of talent that comes through.”

The changes and the constants over time

When Gill Dobbie was in school in Nelson in the late 1970s, her violin teacher was the technology teacher, teaching as she learnt.

Dobbie was the only girl in her school to do computer science and had to go to the boys’ school nearby to use their computers.

They made manual punch-cards for programming which were sent to Christchurch.

She completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne in 1995 and has been a computer science professor at Auckland University for 20 years.

While technology has evolved in leaps and bounds, a problem that has always persisted is transitioning graduates to the workforce, she says.

And despite its evolution, some fundamental questions remain with the same importance about biases in technology and its ability to reason.

Student numbers in computer science have increased every year, though this year remained stable.

But one of Dobbie’s roles has been director of the Auckland ICT graduate school, created to cater to people with a bachelor’s degree in another discipline who want to get into computer science.

It has grown in popularity each year since it began as a collaboration between Waikato University and Auckland University about 10 years ago, and notably it attracts more women than in undergraduate programmes, Dobbie says – though it is still just 25%.

A challenge in computer science for women is confidence, but with the programme, they are building on already completed bachelor degrees and making a conscious decision to do ICT training.

It also offers scholarships for Māori and Pasifika but the uptake is not very high – partly because they require an undergraduate degree first, she speculates.

Young people are “digital natives” but it is important to distinguish between being able to use technology and knowing how it works, Dobbie says.

The humanities and the people within STEM

Ruth McDavitt, chief executive of Summer of Tech, an organisation that bridges the gap between students, graduates and tech careers, says in the dynamic sector, human subjects have become equally important – if not more than they previously ever have.

“You don't need to know the answers any more, as you come through education, it's not about the answers, it's about how we solve the problems, how we ask the questions,” she says.

Over the last 15 years, “hybrid students” with majors in different fields including software engineering and psychology, or Māori, archaeology or music, have been standout students for employers.

“There's the technology-focused people who build the things, but there's also the human-focused people who have the interface with the humans and the solutions, making sure that they're fit for the world and not doing harm.”

Despite declining student numbers and in particular for under-represented demographics, changes in the sector – especially with AI – could make it more accessible for people to join the tech sector, says McDavitt.

“If you also think about software development as a career path, it's basically been revolutionised in the past year, so you may not need to speak the code to be able to supervise the code now.”

But despite internships being key to accelerating people into the workforce, that has also been dropping over the last few years, reflective of the economy.

The programme currently has about 2000 candidates but last year only 130 got internships.

“If everyone sort of downsizes their team, they're unlikely to hire grads. The last three years have been pretty dire in terms of internship, grad opportunities in Aotearoa, we are seeing a lot of our brightest going overseas.”

McDavitt sees a big return on investment if companies are more willing to train graduates on the job.

“We've invested so much in getting people through our education and health systems to be at that point, it is woeful that we're not employing them and just getting them over that hump of the first couple of years on the job.”

New Zealand’s tech balance between innovation and ethics

Jasmine Amohia started her graduate role with Air New Zealand in February. Looking back, her interest in technology started young, she says.

Her dad studied electrical engineering so there were always gadgets around the house and in primary school, Amohia used to draw comics with her friend and use a low code website builder to share them with friends.

“It wasn’t super technical at the time – we were 10 years old, but I think that's when my interest started.”

But the 22-year-old’s path to studying a bachelor of engineering, majoring in software engineering at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), was also shaped by passionate teachers at school.

She took digital technology all through high school at Wellington East Girls’ College and became a technology prefect.

“The teachers at East were well aware of what you wanted to go into, if you did know, they helped support you in that way … So they really set me up, they were great.”

Applying for graduate roles was “quite scary”, she says. But she found support through Summer of Tech and is grateful external organisations like Summer of Tech and Tech Taniwha exist to bridge education with the sector.

For Amohia, the biggest challenge she sees and something that has weighed on her mind is the pace at which innovation happens and the intent behind it. It is important her work aligns with her morals.

“Innovation is awesome, but it can be quite scary, especially with what we see from big tech in America without proper regulation and those guiding that regulation.”

It makes her nervous that everything appears money driven but being a part of the sector, aware of what is happening and the rate at which change happens gives her confidence to face the challenges.

“I think at least in New Zealand, we're more conscious and although it might slow our movement down, I feel like I'm pretty comfortable with how we're learning and progressing.

“I don't know if I'd say the same for other countries, but New Zealand feels like a good space for that intersection between innovation and ethics.”