- Published:
- Wednesday 10 February 2021
A global science and technology firm is increasing its investment in Victoria with a new cutting-edge facility in Melbourne as part of a project which will create up to 100 new, highly skilled tech jobs.
Minister for Economic Development Tim Pallas and Member for South Eastern Metropolitan Dr Tien Kieu announced today that Leidos will establish its Software Factory in Melbourne, its first outside the United States.
The factory will support the company’s growth in Australia, extend its global reach and attract new industry leading capabilities for software development.
Leidos is an information technology, engineering and science solutions and services leader working to solve the world’s toughest challenges in defence, intelligence, homeland security, civil and health markets. The company’s 38,000 employees support vital missions for government and commercial customers across the world.
Leidos will use the new factory to develop highly secure and complex software products, reaping the benefits of its Melbourne location to work in tandem with US-based offices as part of its global model.
The new factory will enable company to bring software to market rapidly, affordably and at consistent high quality.
Leidos employs more than 550 highly skilled workers at its existing Australasian and Asia Pacific headquarters in Victoria as part of its workforce of more than 1,400 across the country.
The company’s Australian clients include the Department of Defence, the Australian Tax Office, the Bureau of Meteorology, the Department of Home Affairs and other Agencies.
The investment by Leidos is a further boost to Victoria’s thriving tech sector which contributes $38.4 billion to the State’s economy and supports more than 139,000 workers across 19,941 businesses.
This announcement is part of a string of international investments in Victoria secured by the Labor Government recently; including AWS, Illumina and Elbit that will assist in Victoria’s economic recovery.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Economic Development Tim Pallas
“This expansion by global company Leidos is yet again a strong validation of our thriving tech sector, our highly skilled workforce and our thriving culture of innovation.”
“Having this cutting-edge facility in Melbourne will further boost our capabilities in areas of software development and create highly skilled jobs which will continue our economic recovery.”
Quote attributable to Member for South Eastern Metropolitan Dr Tien Kieu
“This is a fantastic announcement and investment in Melbourne’s south east that will bring highly skilled jobs and technical specialists to our region – the kind of jobs the Andrews Labor Government is so proud to back.”
Quote attributable to Leidos Australia Chief Executive Paul Chase
“This investment in cutting-edge software development techniques draws on Leidos global capabilities and will significantly enhance our capabilities to deliver the highest standards of complex software development to our customers.”