Australia's job mobility rate has fallen to 7.2 percent, the lowest level on record, and construction sits close to the national average at 9 percent. Engineers are staying in their roles longer than at any point in recent memory. But low mobility does not mean high satisfaction, and Connexus is seeing the gap between the two widen fast.

Employee retention in Australian engineering is stronger on paper than it is in practice. Job mobility is falling nationally, but Connexus is fielding more conversations with engineers who describe their role as stable rather than satisfying. Staying quiet does not mean staying satisfied.

The Numbers Behind Australia's Great Stay

Australia's job mobility rate dropped to 7.2 percent in the year to February 2026, down from 7.7 percent the year before, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Just over one million people changed employer or business over the twelve months, the lowest rate in years.

Construction sat close to the top of the pack, alongside mining, at 9 percent mobility, second only to rental, hiring and real estate services at 11 percent. Agriculture recorded the lowest rate at 4.5 percent.

Industry / Job mobility rate (year to Feb 2026)
Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services / 11%
Mining / 9%
Construction / 9%
National average / 7.2%
Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing / 4.5%

Construction also had the highest proportion of movers who stayed within the same industry, at 74 percent, well above health care and social assistance at 65 percent. When construction professionals do move, most stay inside the sector rather than leaving for something unrelated. Firms are not losing talent to other industries. They are losing it, when they do lose it, to a direct competitor.

Why Are Engineers Staying Even When They're Not Satisfied?

LinkedIn's 2026 workforce research, conducted with Censuswide across more than 2,000 Australian workers, found 51 percent planned to look for a new role in 2026, down from 59 percent the year before. More than two in three respondents said finding a job had become harder over the past year, and four in five felt unprepared to search for a new position.

LinkedIn career expert Brendan Wong described the resulting behaviour as job hugging, a shift away from the job hopping and quiet quitting patterns that defined the years after the pandemic. Workers are not necessarily more loyal. They are more cautious about what a move might cost them in an uncertain market.

Connexus is seeing this play out in engineering specifically. Candidates who would have tested the market without a second thought a few years ago are now staying in roles longer, even where they privately admit the role has stopped stretching them. Engineering also skews toward long-tenured professionals, which raises the cost of getting retention wrong. Losing a project-critical senior engineer is a very different problem to losing a junior hire.

Is the Engineering Skills Shortage Still Fuelling the Market?

Low mobility has not solved Australia's engineering skills shortage. Infrastructure Australia's 2025 Infrastructure Market Capacity Report found the industry was short 141,000 workers as of October 2025, against a public infrastructure pipeline worth roughly $242 billion through to FY2029. That shortage is forecast to surge past 300,000 workers by mid-2027, driven largely by renewable energy projects entering the pipeline alongside existing transport, water and social infrastructure work.

Shortages for engineers, architects and scientists specifically are forecast to peak at around 126,000 in late 2026. Regional areas face the steepest growth, with shortages expected to roughly quadruple between 2025 and 2027 as energy and transport projects compete for the same pool of talent outside the capital cities.

Connexus covered the scale of this pipeline in The Engineering Skills Shortage in Australia (link: https://www.connexusrecruitment.com.au/blog/the-engineering-skills-shortage-in-australia-why-a-242-billion-infrastructure-pipeline-isnt-enough/), and the numbers have only grown since. A shortage this size means engineers who do want to move still have genuine options. The Great Stay is a market condition, not a shortage of demand.

The Retention Risk Hiding Inside Low Mobility

The real retention risk sits below the mobility figures. Connexus regularly hears from engineers who are not actively job hunting but are not being offered a clear next step either, no defined path to senior engineer, associate, or technical lead, and no real sense of how their contribution connects to the bigger picture. That is a very different problem to a pay problem, and it does not show up in a job mobility statistic until the person has already quietly decided to leave.

Read Beyond the Title (link: https://www.connexusrecruitment.com.au/blog/beyond-the-title-how-to-evaluate-whether-a-role-will-really-give-you-more-influence/) for a deeper look at how to judge whether a role change, or an internal promotion, will actually deliver more genuine influence rather than a new title alone.

What Should Employers Do When the Market Isn't Moving?

The instinct to counteroffer when someone resigns is understandable, but it treats the symptom rather than the cause. A pay bump does not fix an unclear progression path, and it rarely changes how someone feels about the role six months later.

The stronger approach is building the case for staying well before anyone hands in their notice: transparent progression pathways, meaningful project exposure, and genuine flexibility, not offered reactively but built into how the role works day to day.

Connexus has seen this play out directly. One long-standing candidate contact, placed multiple times over five years, was made redundant and reached out for a coffee catch-up rather than a formal brief. Connexus identified five target consultancies, ran five first-stage and three second-stage interviews over four weeks, and the candidate received two offers. One year later, the client had more than doubled headcount and revenue in the region under the new hire. The lesson was not about speed. It was that the right long-term fit, once made, compounds. Connexus works as strategic partners to firms who need that fit, not just a quick fill, and retention starts with getting the first match right.

Permanent vs Contract Hiring (link: https://www.connexusrecruitment.com.au/blog/permanent-vs-contract-hiring-in-australia-what-s-right-for-your-business-this-year/) covers a related decision employers are weighing right now, since the model you hire under shapes how much retention risk you carry from day one.

What This Means If You're Weighing Your Next Move

If you are an engineer sitting in the satisfied-but-neutral zone, the safest move is not necessarily silence. Test what a genuine market conversation reveals about your value, your progression options and what else is out there, without treating it as a resignation letter. A confidential conversation with a specialist recruiter costs you nothing and tells you where you actually stand.

Not every move has to mean leaving your industry or your city. Why Engineers Are Moving to Brisbane in 2026 (link: https://www.connexusrecruitment.com.au/blog/why-engineers-are-moving-to-brisbane-in-2026-and-why-smart-employers-are-getting-ahead-of-it/) is one example of engineers finding stronger progression by shifting location within the same discipline, rather than changing what they do. The same logic applies to changing employer within your existing sector, where 74 percent of construction movers already land.

Whichever side of the hiring table you sit on, the underlying question is the same: is staying still the right decision, or has it become the default one. Why Specialist Recruiters Matter More Than Ever in the Built Environment (link: https://www.connexusrecruitment.com.au/blog/why-specialist-recruiters-matter-more-than-ever-in-the-built-environment/) is a good next read if you want a clearer answer either way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why aren't Australian engineers changing jobs in 2026?
National job mobility has fallen to a record low of 7.2 percent, and engineers are weighing the cost of a difficult job search against the risk of staying in a role that has stalled. Connexus sees candidates testing the market quietly rather than resigning outright, which keeps official mobility low even when dissatisfaction is rising.

What is job hugging and how is it different from the Great Resignation?
Job hugging describes employees holding onto their current role out of caution rather than loyalty, the opposite instinct to the mass resignations of 2021 and 2022. Connexus works with both employers and candidates navigating this shift, where retention looks stronger on paper than it feels day to day.

Does staying in one job hurt long-term salary growth for engineers?
It can, particularly where promotion and progression are unclear. Connexus regularly benchmarks salaries for candidates unsure whether their current role still reflects their market value, and a lack of visible progression is one of the most common reasons engineers give for exploring a move.

What should employers offer to retain engineers beyond salary?
Learning and development, flexible working and genuine internal progression pathways rank above reactive counteroffers as effective retention levers. Connexus advises clients to build these into the employee experience early, rather than relying on a last-minute offer when someone resigns.

Is now a good time for an engineer to test the job market in Australia?
With engineering-specific shortages still forecast to grow and a $242 billion infrastructure pipeline underway, genuine opportunities exist even while national mobility is low. Connexus Recruitment can give engineers a confidential read on where they stand, without any pressure to commit to a move.

References

• Australian Bureau of Statistics — Job mobility continues to decline into 2026 (media release, February 2026 data)
• Infrastructure Australia — 2025 Infrastructure Market Capacity Report
• LinkedIn, in partnership with Censuswide — 2026 Australian workforce survey (job hugging research)