Insider Brief
- Diraq argues that the quantum computing industry will need broader workforce pathways beyond PhD-level hiring to support future commercial growth.
- The company highlights undergraduate engineering programs, technical training, and specialized roles such as cryogenic engineering as potential workforce models for scaling quantum companies.
- Diraq states that doctoral researchers will remain essential for advanced quantum research, while many engineering and operational roles may not require PhD-level expertise.
- Picture: Alex Dickie, one of Diraq’s first hires with only an undergraduate engineering degree.
Silicon spin qubit company Diraq has published a blog post arguing that the quantum computing industry’s hiring model which is historically built around doctoral-level candidates – cannot support the workforce scale the sector will need within the next decade.
The post cites figures from the Quantum Economic Development Consortium showing roughly 16,500 pure-play quantum professionals worldwide as of 2025. Quantum Insider’s economic impact analysis , also cited in the post, projects that number will reach 250,000 quantum-sector jobs by 2030 and 840,000 by 2035.
Diraq argues that a PhD takes four to five years to complete and that even at maximum capacity across all relevant doctoral programs, the pipeline cannot meet that demand, particularly given competition from AI, biotech, and semiconductor sectors for the same physics and engineering talent.
The Case Against a PhD-Only Workforce
The company draws a comparison to the semiconductor industry, which it describes as built on a small number of researchers developing device concepts that are then implemented by large numbers of engineers and technicians without doctoral qualifications. Diraq states that the quantum industry is overdue for the same structure and has operated as a laboratory pursuit for so long because it had, until recently, produced experiments rather than products.
Alex Dickie, an IC Test Engineer at Diraq who joined the company after completing an undergraduate engineering degree and described in the post as one of Diraq’s first hires, is quoted directly. “A PhD student is there to do a research project and that doesn’t always line up with the work that needs to happen right now to build prototypes,” she said. “You can do a lot of engineering in quantum computing that doesn’t require a PhD-level understanding of quantum physics.”
Diraq does not argue that doctoral researchers will become unnecessary. The post states that problems such as writing error-correction codes and designing qubit architectures genuinely require deep, multi-year training and that PhD researchers will continue to do that work. However, Diraq contends these roles represent a small fraction of the headcount needed to design, fabricate, test, install, control, and maintain hardware at the scale the industry is targeting.
The Bachelor of Quantum Engineering
A central example in the post is UNSW Sydney’s Bachelor of Quantum Engineering , a four-year undergraduate program launched in 2020. The program is designed to produce 40 to 50 engineers per year who can enter a quantum company directly after graduation. Diraq founder and CEO Andrew Dzurak is identified in the post as one of the architects of that curriculum.
Diraq states it is now hiring from the first cohort to graduate from the program. One named hire is Sophia Wolczak, described as Diraq’s Cryo Lab Support Engineer and a graduate of the program’s first cohort.
The post describes Australia’s engineering profession as one historically built around undergraduate training, with most engineers entering the workforce after a four-or five-year undergraduate degree and building expertise on the job. Diraq describes this culture as well-suited to the staffing model it believes the quantum industry needs. The post also notes that a country of 28 million people has produced two of the eleven companies selected for Stage B of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative .
Cryogenics as a Future Trade
Diraq argues in the post that cryogenics represents a useful indicator of where the broader industry is heading. The company notes that many people currently operating dilution refrigerators at quantum companies have PhDs, not because the day-to-day operation of these systems necessarily requires that level of academic specialization, but because the expertise historically developed within physics research environments where cryogenic systems were primarily used.
The company also argues that quantum computing is the first industrial application requiring a global, scalable cryogenic workforce, and suggests that within a decade, cryogenic installation and maintenance could resemble a certified trade with its own career ladder, comparable to climate control or industrial gas handling. Diraq describes the barrier to this as the absence of formal training pathways rather than technical complexity.
Investor Signal
The post frames workforce composition as a signal of commercial maturity. “A company that can only function with PhDs at every desk is a research project with a runway,” Diraq states. “A company that can hire comfortably across the full range of engineering and technical backgrounds is a business in the process of becoming an industry.”
Diraq states it is hiring engineers, technicians, and theorists across that range, citing its proximity to the semiconductor industry’s staffing model as a structural advantage given that silicon spin qubits share design and process foundations with conventional semiconductor fabrication.