QUT Learning Technologist: What the $120,557 Job Ad Really Tells You

QUT is hiring a Learning Technologist at its Kelvin Grove campus, fixed-term to 31 December 2026, and the money is on the table: $94,084 to $101,872 base salary at Higher Education Worker Level 6. Add 17 per cent superannuation and 17.5 per cent recreation leave loading and the advertised package reads $111,341 to $120,557.

That's a solid professional-staff package in Brisbane. It's also the number that decides who applies.

Here's what the ad says, what it doesn't, and what the person hiring and the person applying should each do with it.

A support job with a production job stapled to it

A Learning Technologist sits between the academics who teach and the systems that deliver the teaching. In QUT's case that means the Learning and Teaching Unit, inside the Education Portfolio, reporting to the Manager, Educational Technologies and Digital Media Services.

The duties come in two halves. First, support: answering, triaging, resolving or escalating requests from academics trying to use QUT's educational technology. Second, production: building digital media and interactive resources, designed against course and unit learning outcomes, that are accessible and meant to last longer than one semester.

Some terms worth unpacking if you're new to the sector. The learning management system, or LMS, is the platform where a unit's content, assessment, grades and communication live. QUT runs Canvas, which replaced Blackboard from Semester 1 2023. A learning tool interoperability, or LTI, is an external tool plugged into that LMS. SaaS means software as a service: the vendor runs it, the university configures and tests it. And "tier 0" in QUT's language is self-service help — the guides and answers that stop a query becoming a ticket in the first place.

The ad also names generative AI explicitly. Whoever takes this role will be nudging academics towards current and emerging tools, including generative AI, and helping them work out where those tools actually improve a unit rather than decorate it.

The grading question nobody asks out loud

QUT has placed this role at HEW6. Comparable institutions have advertised the same title higher, and candidates should know that before they accept a number.

QUT's package tracks Tasmania closely and sits well below ACU's HEW7 version of the same job. That gap isn't a scandal; it's what happens when a sector grades a role by its support function rather than its design function. It matters because the people QUT wants — someone who can both build a resource and explain the pedagogy behind it — are the same people ACU and Curtin are competing for.

QUT's own digital strategy is explicit that staff should have access to digital solutions that are stable, easy to use and give them data about their students. Delivering that promise lands on roles like this one. The grading determines whether the university can hold onto the people who deliver it.

What actually gets a candidate shortlisted

The formal line is "education, training and/or experience equivalent to completion of a degree in a relevant field, together with subsequent relevant experience". Read that twice. QUT is not requiring a degree; it's requiring the equivalent, evidenced. A candidate with six years in a university's edtech support team and a portfolio of built resources can meet that criterion without a piece of parchment.

The six selection criteria, in the order the position description lists them:

• Degree-equivalent education or experience, plus experience in educational technologies, technology support and digital media production in higher education.
• Digital literacy across learning management systems, assessment tools, video platforms and interactive tools.
• Design and production of digital media resources tied to course and unit learning outcomes.
• Understanding of learning approaches and how they connect to outcomes.
• Ability to answer, prioritise, resolve, escalate or redirect support requests, and to test tools, in a high-volume, high-pressure environment.
• Communication and interpersonal skill across a spread of stakeholders.

Criterion five is the one candidates undersell. Everyone claims they're good with people. Almost nobody brings numbers. If you've handled a support queue, say what the queue looked like: how many requests a week, what your resolution rate was, what proportion you killed at tier 0 with a better help article. That last figure is the one a hiring manager will remember, because it's the difference between a support officer and someone who reduces demand.

For criterion three, bring the work. A two-minute walkthrough of a unit you rebuilt, showing the original resource and what replaced it, does more than a paragraph of prose. This is the kind of evidence that separates a strong application from a list of duties, and it's the same logic behind writing a CV that shows outcomes rather than responsibilities.

The full position description, including the selection criteria verbatim, is available through QUT's candidate portal. Read it before you write anything.

Fixed-term, hybrid, and no sponsorship

The appointment runs to 31 December 2026 and is hybrid, which at QUT means a blend of on-campus and off-campus work rather than a fully remote post. It's open to applicants with unrestricted work rights in Australia for the duration of the contract. There's no visa sponsorship attached — a line that quietly removes a large slice of the international candidate pool.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants are encouraged to apply, consistent with QUT's stated target of 3.6 per cent Indigenous Australian workforce participation. Current QUT staff who want the role as a secondment need their supervisor's approval before they submit. And QUT has advertised this title on both a fixed-term and an ongoing basis in recent rounds, so check the reference number on the version you're looking at: 26085A is the fixed-term external one.

If you're the one doing the hiring, the fixed-term end date is your biggest recruitment risk. Twelve months is enough time to learn QUT's systems and not quite enough to see a curriculum redesign through to evaluation. Good candidates will ask what happens at the end of 2026. Have an answer that isn't a shrug.

The career problem sitting underneath the job ad

Professional staff numbers across Australian higher education grew 2.6 per cent in 2025 to 73,021 full-time equivalent positions, according to Department of Education staffing statistics. That growth is real, and roles like this one are part of it. But the sector has a retention problem it hasn't solved.

Research published in Higher Education Research and Development surveyed 138 learning designers across Australasia and interviewed 15 of them. The finding that should worry every learning and teaching unit: a lack of career progression is one of the clearest reasons these professionals give for leaving the university sector. The same study notes the HEW classification system covers around 54 per cent of the Australian university workforce and may no longer fit roles that sit between academic and professional territory.

That's what a Learning Technologist is. It's a third-space role: not an academic, not a general administrator, judged by neither of the promotion frameworks that exist.

The concrete action for universities is unglamorous but cheap. Publish a progression path for these roles before you advertise them. Say what HEW7 looks like in your unit, what evidence gets someone there, and who reviews it. A candidate reading a fixed-term HEW6 ad with no visible next step is already browsing elsewhere.

Two verdicts, one role

If you're applying: this is a genuine production-and-support job at a university that has just been through a major platform migration and is actively working out what generative AI means for teaching. That's useful experience. Bring numbers on your support load, bring a portfolio, and ask in the interview what the 2027 plan is.

If you're hiring: the package is competitive in Brisbane but not against the HEW7 and G08 versions of the same work at other institutions. You'll get good applicants. You'll get fewer of the best ones, and the ones you lose will go where the grade is higher and the contract runs longer. Grading is a recruitment decision whether or not anyone frames it that way.

The listing sits on the AcademicJobs university jobs board alongside the rest of QUT's current openings.