Birchgrove has 16.7 per cent of its residents with a postgraduate degree. Westmead, ranked in second place, accounts for 16.4 per cent. Further down the ladder is Parramatta, 14.0 per cent and Harris Park, 13.5 per cent.
These percentages are well above the overall Sydney figure of 5.6 per cent and the national figure of 3.8 per cent of people who have completed a postgraduate degree.
Census figures (2006) show Westmead had 38.5 per cent of its residents with a bachelor/higher degree, Parramatta, 32.4 per cent and Harris Park, 32.4 per cent.
The comparable figures (2006) for the three regional cities in Western Sydney were: Parramatta, 20.8 per cent. Liverpool, 9.9 per cent and Penrith, 8.7 per cent. Although not a regional city, The Hills accounted for 24.1 per cent of its resident with a bachelor/higher degree.
The suburbs of Westmead, Parramatta and Harris Park underline the view that well-educated people tend to live close to skilled jobs in the Parramatta CBD or its surrounds - the Westmead medical precinct, or have easy access to such employment in the Sydney CBD or elsewhere in the metropolitan area.
For a number of years, Parramatta City Council has endeavoured to attract these highly skilled, highly paid people to “discover” Parramatta by upgrading the public space, the amenity of the city, its night life and promoting high profile events – all attributes of a destination appealing to the younger professional class.
However, the picture is not all rosy in the Parramatta LGA, with suburbs, such as South Granville, 1.7 per cent, and Old Guilford and Guildford West, 1,4 per cent, below the national and overall Sydney figures.
Looking further afield the census data (2011) shows that Sydney’s outer west and south west suburbs have one per cent, or less, of their residents with postgraduate degrees (see box for a regional perspective) .
Professor Phillip O’Neil, from the University of Western Sydney’s Urban Research Centre, has noted that the jobs deficit in Western Sydney in the professional services and scientific areas was “chronic”.
“We have to take seriously the need for a higher concentration of top-end jobs in Western Sydney,” he said.
The Parramatta based, Regional Development Australia-Sydney has been aiming to correct this situation, with the latest of its workshops, in Bankstown, to devise strategies to boost the finance, property and professional business services sector in Sydney’s south west.
