Twenty-five years ago, there was no such thing as a defence industry recruitment specialist in Australia. We didn’t set out to build one. Kinexus started the way many small businesses do - following work that was there, noticing a gap that others hadn’t. This gap was between the people who’d served, the engineers who’d built, and the industry that needed them. It was only gradually that we understood what that gap meant, and what filling it properly could look like.
The market we inherited
When Kinexus opened its doors, the defence labour market was in a kind of equilibrium. Supply and demand for defence engineering, ICT and project management skills were broadly matched, and the sector moved at the measured pace of long-term capability programs. There was no specialist recruitment agency helping people move within the defence industry, or guiding veterans as they transitioned to civilian roles. So, we built one.
Key milestones
2001 | Founding Kinexus (then Kinetic Recruitment) becomes Australia’s first agency dedicated to defence engineering and technical recruitment. |
2004-05 | Early growth Appointed to supply TSPV-cleared ICT professionals to ASD. Launched the first Defence-specific salary surveys – the first organisation to do so. |
2008 | Global Financial Crisis Recruitment paused for three months, forcing us to build a resilience model we still rely on today. |
2008-13 | Government change. Funding withdrawn The Rudd and Gillard governments’ Defence budget cuts tested our resilience. We learned to stay lean and stay specialist. |
2016-22 | The boom. Concurrent programs & critical shortages Concurrent programs drove unprecedented demand. Critical shortages emerged across engineering, ICT, and security-cleared roles (NV1, NV2, TSPV). Rebranded from Kinetic Recruitment to Kinexus. Launched Defence Industry Insights (DII) white paper. Supported multiple overseas clients establishing themselves in Australia. |
2020 | COVID. Managing the unmanageable The pandemic tested every small business. We leaned heavily on the lessons and the blueprint we’d built coming out of the GFC and it showed us that preparation, not just instinct, is what gets you through. |
2022-now | Rationalisation. Doing more with less Defence budgets contract, with pockets of growth driving continued demand for highly cleared workers. Demand continues for highly cleared engineers, ICT specialists, and project professionals. Kinexus becomes DISP accredited and launches security clearance sponsorship services. |
What resilience actually looks like
Resilience is a word that gets used too easily. For us, it has a precise meaning, built from three things that don't change even when everything else does.
The first is people. By this, I don't mean headcount; I mean depth. Consultants who understand the difference between a systems engineer and a safety engineer, who know which security clearances take six months, and which take two years. That expertise is what our clients and candidates have come to rely on, and it can't be manufactured quickly.
The second is leadership continuity. Our leadership team has remained stable for over a decade. In a market built on relationships and institutional knowledge, that consistency is a genuine competitive advantage.
The third is focus. We have never drifted from our core: defence engineering and ICT recruitment. When other agencies generalised to weather market cycles, we doubled down on knowing our market better than anyone.
“Many of the organisations now recruiting in the defence space had their roots in what Kinexus pioneered.”
The stories behind the relationships
250+ placements per year across defence engineering and ICT | 25 years as Australia’s specialist defence industry recruitment agency | 10+ years of senior leadership stability |
Multiply 250 placements by more than twenty active years, and you start to understand the weight of institutional knowledge we carry and the responsibility that comes with it.
But behind the big numbers lie hundreds of individual stories. The impact of what we do is twofold: we support candidates in finding new roles, and, in turn, they help shape all of our lives by strengthening the national security capability of the nation we call home. Some of the candidate stories that have stayed with me:
A Defence Project Manager living overseas, who we helped secure his dream job in Melbourne, allowing him to return to his kids.
A contractor whose access to higher rates allowed his partner the opportunity to take extended parental leave to raise their son.
A veteran we placed in their first post-ADF role, who is now a Program Director.
A Systems Safety Engineer we placed who has overseen the sustainment and upgrade of the Air Warfare Destroyers shipbuilding program, helping keep our coastline secure.
An ADF veteran who didn’t know where to turn, who is now using a decade of Air Force technical knowledge to protect Australians from cyber threats.
Many candidates sent overseas to gain specialist knowledge in aircraft operation, maintenance, or nuclear skills have brought that expertise back to Australia.
A team of TSPV-cleared cyber specialists protecting critical Defence systems.
Remembering these stories is what makes this 25-year milestone special.
Over 25 years we’ve had the opportunity to change the industry at a structural level. Some of the programs we’ve been involved in include:
We have run workforce planning projects for overseas defence primes entering the Australian market.
We published the Defence Industry Insights, the first publication in Australia to target defence-specific skill sets and workforce planning.
We were instrumental in establishing the Naval Shipbuilding College, contributing data on the availability of security-cleared engineers in Australia at a time when that data simply didn’t exist anywhere else.
In 2015 we launched The Future Through Collaboration, a mentoring initiative that has now supported more than 380 women through careers in defence and defence industry.
And more recently we have immersed ourselves in the nuclear skill set, both in attracting overseas talent and building sovereign capability to support the AUKUS program.
What we are most proud of: Kinexus as a vehicle for people
If you asked me to distil twenty-five years into a single idea, it wouldn’t be a placement milestone, publication, or government partnership. It would be this: Kinexus has been a vehicle for people - our own people - to develop skills, grow into roles they didn’t know they were capable of, and do things they might not have done anywhere else. Many came to us after serving in the ADF, carrying skills and experience the civilian market didn’t yet know how to value. Helping them find their footing and watching what they went on to do is what this business is really about.
Over the life of the business, we've employed between 30 and 50 direct staff at any one time, and supported around 100 contractors in the field. Every one of those people represents a decision, a hire, a conversation, a moment of trust. Getting those decisions right, I've come to believe, is the central work of running a business.
One of the biggest lessons I've learned is this: when you have the right people in the right places, it solves most of the problems you'll ever face. The remaining challenges - market shifts, cash flow pressures, and unexpected crises - become manageable.
Building that team isn't a formula. It comes from trying things, failing, learning, and keeping a core group together that shares common values and vision. If there’s a secret ingredient to twenty-five years of survival, that’s it.
“When you have the right people in the right places, it solves 60 to 70 per cent of the problems you’ll ever face.”
A personal note: the challenges behind the milestone
It’s hard to capture the emotional journey of running a small business for a long period of time. The public story is milestones and momentum. The private story is something different, uncertainty managed month by month, decisions made with incomplete information, and the weight of responsibility for the people around you.
I would be doing a disservice to anyone facing similar challenges if I didn't share some of my own.
Over the last decade, as the stress levels went up, I used drinking as a crutch, and it became a real problem in my life. The accumulation of pressure, business demands, personal challenges, and the relentlessness of running something through COVID and market downturns reached a point where I had to confront it directly. Those are not meant to sound like excuses – its just the reality of what happened.
I went through an intensive two-year program to address it. It required a reengineering of how I think about stress, how I manage pressure, and what I reach for when things get hard. It was not easy. But I have been sober now for coming up on four years.
"I’m open about this for one reason: running a small business is a personal journey, and it would be easy (and dishonest) to present twenty-five years as a story of smooth resilience. The real story of most small businesses in Australia is people overcoming challenges almost month by month. It’s not just turnover and headcount. It’s hard work, personal struggle, and digging deep to keep going."
I was lucky. I had the support of my family. And I had people inside the business who gave me the time and space to focus on getting better, who showed up, held things together, and never made me feel alone in it. Many of our clients know. Many people in the business know. I tell the story now because I’m in recovery, and I wouldn’t have got here without the people around me.
That, in the end, is the truest version of what Kinexus is. Not a firm. Not a brand. A group of people who show up for each other and, by extension, for every client and candidate we serve.
Looking forward
We are entering what feels like the most genuinely uncertain period the Australian defence industry has faced in our twenty-five years of operation. We have navigated the GFC, shifts in government funding, a global pandemic, and multiple boom-bust cycles. but today’s uncertainty feels different because it is structural, not just cyclical.
Defence is rapidly shifting toward faster, more agile capabilities: autonomous systems, drones, robotics, and AI-enabled platforms. The workforce and skills profile needed is evolving just as quickly. At the same time, demand for security-cleared professionals remains strong, especially at NV2 and TSPV levels, creating tension between capability demands and budget realities.
After twenty-five years in this market, we do not claim to have all the answers. But we do know how to navigate uncertainty, ask the right questions, and support the people behind Defence capability. That is what we will keep doing.
Here’s to the next chapter
When Kinexus began, there was no clear pathway for defence industry professionals to move within the sector, or for ADF members transitioning to civilian careers. We helped build those connections. The industry is stronger for it, and we are proud of that.
But what we are proudest of is the people. Watching someone join us early in their career and become genuinely excellent at something difficult. Seeing a mentoring program evolve from a conversation into an institution shaping hundreds of careers. And spending twenty-five years showing up for a sector that matters deeply to Australia’s future.
"Kinexus is my third child… and at this point, has the best ROI of all three. (I hope they never read this)"
To everyone who has been part of this, our team, our clients, our candidates, and our industry partners: thank you.
