I spent fifteen years commuting into Melbourne’s tech scene, and I’ll be honest - I never thought Geelong would become a serious competitor. But something’s shifted down there, and it’s worth paying attention to.

Last month I caught up with three former colleagues who’ve all made the move to Geelong in the past eighteen months. Not one of them is planning to come back. That’s not just anecdotal - the numbers are starting to tell the same story.

The Infrastructure Finally Caught Up

For years, regional Victoria’s biggest barrier was simple: the internet wasn’t good enough. You can’t run a software company on patchy ADSL, and video calls that drop out every ten minutes don’t exactly inspire confidence with clients.

That’s changed. The NBN rollout across the Geelong region has been one of the more successful deployments, and several co-working spaces are now advertising gigabit connections. Suddenly, a developer in North Geelong has the same bandwidth as someone in Southbank - but with a fraction of the cost and stress.

The Geelong Tech School has been quietly churning out graduates who don’t need to leave town anymore. Deakin University’s Waurn Ponds campus has expanded its tech programs. There’s actual local talent now, not just people working remotely for Melbourne firms.

Co-Working Spaces That Actually Work

I’ve visited four different co-working spaces in Geelong over the past year - Runway Geelong, The Commons, and a couple of newer spots near the waterfront. They’re not trying to be WeWork knockoffs with overpriced kombucha. They’re practical, well-designed spaces that understand what regional tech workers actually need.

What struck me most was the community feel. In Melbourne, you might work next to someone for six months and never learn their name. In Geelong, people introduce themselves. They share contacts. There’s a genuine sense that everyone’s building something together, rather than competing for the same narrow slice of opportunity.

One founder told me she’d moved her whole startup from Collingwood to Geelong and cut her office costs by 60% while doubling her team’s happiness. Her exact words: “My developers actually go outside during lunch breaks now. That never happened in the city.”

The Lifestyle Factor Is Real

Here’s what the economic development reports don’t capture: Geelong is just nicer to live in right now. You can buy a decent house for what you’d pay for a one-bedroom apartment in Brunswick. The beaches are twenty minutes away. There’s parking. Your kids can walk to school.

I’m not romanticising it - Geelong has its challenges, and it’s not Melbourne. But for tech workers who spent the pandemic working from home and realised they didn’t actually need to be in the CBD, it’s become a genuinely appealing option.

The food scene has improved dramatically too. That matters more than people think. Tech workers aren’t going to relocate somewhere they can’t get decent coffee and Vietnamese food. Geelong’s sorted that out.

What This Means for the Rest of Regional Victoria

From where I sit in Ballarat, Geelong’s success is both encouraging and slightly frustrating. We’ve got most of the same advantages - lower costs, better lifestyle, improving infrastructure - but Geelong has the critical mass and proximity to Melbourne that makes the pitch easier.

Bendigo’s watching closely too. So is Shepparton. The question isn’t whether regional tech hubs can work anymore - Geelong’s proving they can. The question is which towns will be next, and what they need to do to attract that initial wave of companies and workers.

The Victorian Government’s regional development strategy has started acknowledging this shift, but the real momentum is coming from individuals and small companies making lifestyle decisions, not top-down planning.

The Risk of Success

Here’s my concern: Geelong’s going to get expensive. It’s already happening. Property prices are climbing fast, and that “affordable alternative to Melbourne” pitch won’t last forever. If Geelong doesn’t build enough housing and infrastructure to match the growth, it’ll just become another unaffordable city with bad traffic.

The other risk is that this all reverses if companies demand everyone back in Melbourne offices full-time. Some firms are already pushing for return-to-office mandates. But I suspect that ship has sailed - workers who’ve moved for lifestyle reasons aren’t coming back easily.

A New Model for Victorian Tech

What’s happening in Geelong isn’t just a regional success story. It’s evidence that Victoria’s tech industry doesn’t have to be entirely concentrated in Melbourne’s inner suburbs. That’s good for everyone - it reduces pressure on Melbourne’s housing and transport, it brings economic opportunities to regional areas, and it gives tech workers actual choices about where they want to live.

I don’t think Geelong will replace Melbourne. But it doesn’t need to. It just needs to be good enough that talented people choose to stay or move there. Right now, it’s crossed that threshold.

Worth keeping an eye on. Dave.