Canterbury’s tech sector employed 16,158 people in 2025, up 447 jobs or 2.8% on the year before. Across New Zealand the sector lost 4,630 jobs, a fall of 3.9%.
The figures are in New Zealand Tech Metrics 2025, published on 5 October by Tech New Zealand. It’s the not-for-profit industry body for 18 tech communities, and each year it compiles Stats NZ data on the sector’s businesses, jobs, exports and GDP.
The report puts Wellington’s tech workforce down 10.2% and Auckland’s down 3.3%.
That gives Canterbury the second-largest tech workforce in the country, behind Auckland’s 60,523 and ahead of Wellington’s 14,925. Nationally the sector still accounts for 4.7% of the workforce and contributed $24.5 billion to GDP in 2025, up 3%, the report says.
Manufacturing carries the numbers
Most of Canterbury’s tech workers aren’t in software firms. The report’s regional table puts 9,465 of the region’s tech jobs in high-tech manufacturing and 6,693 in ICT.
Wellington’s mix runs the other way, with 11,366 of its tech jobs in ICT. Tech New Zealand links the capital’s losses to the Government cutting its own tech workforce. The report says those cuts also reduced the number of small contractor firms in Wellington, where tech business numbers fell 8.8%.
High-tech manufacturing also had the better year nationally. Its exports grew 5.8% to $8.4 billion in 2025, about 68% of New Zealand’s $12.4 billion in tech exports, according to the report.
Business numbers followed the same pattern. Canterbury had 2,505 tech businesses in 2025, up 0.3%, while the national count fell 2.8% to 23,376. The report says the region’s count has grown at a compound rate of 2% a year over the past decade. Auckland’s has shrunk three years running.
The companies behind the count
Two Christchurch companies show what sits behind those totals. Tait Communications, the radio communications company founded 57 years ago, was named PwC Hi-Tech Company of the Year at the NZ Hi-Tech Awards in May. In the judges’ citation, published in Tait’s 25 May release, the company was “coming off a phenomenal year, passing the half billion dollar revenue mark.”
Yoram Benit, Tait’s chief executive and managing director, credited staff in the same release. “This reflects the dedication of our people, who work tirelessly to keep our customers safe and connected when failure is not an option,” he said.
Enatel designs and builds industrial battery chargers for forklifts and airport ground equipment. In February it opened an 8,000 square metre plant at Christchurch Airport’s Dakota Park.
General manager Mike Clifford told RNZ at the 4 February opening that the plant brings nearly 200 staff under one roof for the first time since the 2011 earthquake. “We export 95% of what we make, and we’re the only manufacturer of our kind in Australasia,” he said.
Ali Adams, chief executive of ChristchurchNZ, the city’s economic development agency, argues that technology now sits under every sector. The agency focuses on aerospace, healthtech, cleantech and the bioeconomy. “The real economic transformation underway is not about any single technology. It is about the growing importance of technological capability across every part of the economy,” Ali wrote in a 25 September article on the agency’s site.
Where the next hires come from
The same report raises a supply question. In 2025, 14,553 Year 13 students took NCEA technology subjects, 10% more than the year before. Only 2,030 school leavers went on to start IT degrees, a drop of 37%.
Graeme Muller, chief executive of Tech New Zealand, picked out that gap in a 5 October newsletter. “Tech employment, business numbers and R&D investment have all declined. Our domestic talent pipeline also needs attention,” he wrote.
Some study areas are growing. Domestic enrolments in AI degrees rose 34% to 495, and computer science graduates rose 12.5% to 1,535, the report says. Software engineering graduates fell 10%.
Tech visas remain below past levels. Immigration NZ granted 1,914 visas for tech and ICT roles in 2025. That’s up on 2024, but the report puts the past decade’s average at about 4,000 a year.
Local graduate numbers are flat. Tech New Zealand counts 2,540 domestic students who finished IT degrees in 2025, 0.6% fewer than a year earlier.
SPONSORED
