Bridging the mainframe skills gap

It may come as a surprise that many large Australian corporate and government organisations rely on mainframe platforms to run their core operations. Mainframes remain among the most reliable and secure IT systems available, but can also keep senior leadership teams awake at night.

Their concerns are two-fold: there is a shrinking pool of experienced practitioners with the expertise to run and evolve these core environments safely while any proposed upgrade or migration carries significant risk – where even minor disruption is unacceptable.

At the same time, the enterprise technology conversation is being reshaped by artificial intelligence (AI). For organisations that depend on mainframes, this is leading to rising expectations for faster digital transformation, greater resilience and improved customer experiences.

In response, organisations typically weigh up two paths: either replatforming or modernising the environments they already have.

While replatforming is a valid option, many organisations find the path difficult, costly and operationally risky. The scale of data, deep integration with surrounding systems, and the business-critical nature of workloads in sectors such as finance, healthcare, government and supply chains mean wholesale migration is often far more complex than it first appears.

As a result, many organisations are adopting more pragmatic hybrid models: retaining core transaction processing on the mainframe while extending digital services, analytics and customer experiences through cloud and distributed platforms. However, this blended approach introduces additional operational complexity and increases reliance on that shrinking pool of specialist expertise required to maintain hybrid infrastructure.

The answer lies in building a stronger pipeline of early-career engineers who can maintain, enhance and ultimately lead these mission-critical systems as today’s experts retire. That requires deliberate investment in training, mentoring and real-world exposure so the next generation can build capability before institutional knowledge walks out the door.

That is the thinking behind our NextGen Academy, which launched in Australia in February 2026. The programme is designed to build capability in a persistently constrained market while creating a clearer entry point for graduates and junior engineers who may not otherwise view mainframe work as part of a modern technology career.

The first Australian intake is spending six months in full-time learning through a mix of structured instruction and hands-on practice. The goal is not simply to teach platform fundamentals, but to help participants understand how mainframe systems fit within today’s broader application, data and operations landscape.

AI is part of that learning because it is already becoming a day-to-day reality of engineering work. Used thoughtfully, it can accelerate participants’ development. This matters because the mainframe skills gap is not unique to Australia; it is a broader industry challenge, with experienced engineers retiring faster than new specialists are being developed. AI can help narrow that gap by reducing the time it takes for newer engineers to become productive and work with greater autonomy.

None of this suggests that AI replaces people or the foundational skills required to work in mainframe environments. AI can augment expertise and accelerate learning, but organisations still need engineers with deep technical understanding of the architecture, operational disciplines and governance that underpin these systems. That is why education and talent-pipeline initiatives such as our academy matter: they can help turn a looming succession challenge into a practical, scalable workforce strategy.

If Australia is to modernise critical systems with confidence, the conversation must move beyond technology choices alone. The real test is whether organisations can combine practical modernisation, stronger next-generation skills development and knowledge transfer, and thoughtful use of AI so their most important platforms remain stable even as the people who run them change.

Karla Bester is Australian country manager engineering at Rocket Software