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As a national review addresses the knowledge gap in dental technician education, the industry is facing the dual pressures of preparing graduates for today while managing the way technicians work in the future. By Shane Conroy
Across Australia, dental laboratories are facing the same problem: it has become increasingly difficult to recruit entry-level technicians who are ready for commercial production. Graduate skill sets lag behind digital workflows, labs are reluctant to take on placements, and, in some cases, new staff must be retrained from scratch.
Against this backdrop, HumanAbility—the government-funded Jobs and Skills Council for the care and support economy—has launched a national review of the Diploma of Dental Technology and the Diploma of Dental Prosthetics. The aim is to bring the curriculum in line with CAD/CAM manufacturing, modern materials, and current regulatory responsibilities. But as the review progresses, the industry is confronting a bigger question about where the profession is heading in an AI-assisted future and what entry-level will look like in this new workplace reality.
A stronger grounding for today
For the Australian Dental Technicians Association (ADTA), the problem is clear. ADTA CEO Ashleigh Clark says the existing diplomas no longer reflect the reality of contemporary lab work and leave graduates unprepared for commercial environments.
We’re trying to train people for a digital industry using an analogue curriculum,” she says. “The national training product hasn’t kept pace with CAD/CAM workflows, intraoral scanning, digital design systems or modern materials. Graduates are enthusiastic, but the depth just isn’t there. Labs are having to reteach fundamental skills.”
Safety is also part of ADTA’s concern. With deregulation allowing non-compliant materials into the market, Clark argues that technicians need a stronger grounding in material science and TGA requirements for personalised medical devices.
“Our members want to see more scientific literacy, more digital competency, and clearer understanding of regulatory responsibilities,” she explains. ADTA’s recommendations to the review reflect that direction. They propose deeper teaching in CAD modelling, scan data interpretation, CAM systems and post-processing protocols, along with structured modules on digital manufacturing environments, machine control systems, and metallurgy.
“Labs want to help train the next generation,” Clark says. “But they need graduates who can contribute, not start from zero.”
Skilling up for tomorrow
At Sydney-based lab, Avant Dental, head of Business Richard Salter and head of Technical Ian Feigen agree that graduates lack essential skills.
“The knowledge gap isn’t small,” Feigen says. “We have to retrain them from scratch, even in basics like occlusion, anatomy, material behaviour, and digital entry-level tasks.”
But for Avant, the bigger force reshaping the workforce is automation—and that’s rapidly reshaping the role of the technician at a fundamental level. In their view, the technician workforce isn’t just undertrained; it is being redefined.
“We’re already seeing AI-driven design, automated milling, automated 3D printing, automated post-processing,” Salter says. “As a result, the traditional junior technician role is disappearing. So we’re not looking for the technician of the past. We’re looking for someone with an engineering mindset who can run automated systems, understand AI software, manage digital workflows.”
Economic pressures amplify that shift. Squeezed margins, high-quality competition from overseas, and the time required to retrain underprepared graduates make the traditional employment model difficult to sustain.
“Curriculum reform takes years,” Feigen says. “Technology changes every six months.”
A field in transition
Both perspectives contribute to a fuller picture of a profession that must support today’s graduate technicians while preparing for the new-tech roles emerging around them.
ADTA and the national review are working to modernise the technician role as it exists today: deepen scientific literacy, expand digital proficiency, strengthen regulation, and improve graduate readiness. Avant, by contrast, is already planning for a workforce shaped by automated design and manufacture, where the core bottleneck is not craft skill but digital system management. In that future, graduates need fluidity in CAD interfaces, an understanding of machine behaviour, and the ability to oversee AI-driven processes. In that reality, the technician becomes less a maker and more a digital production specialist.
Both visions describe genuine forces acting on the profession. The HumanAbility review can modernise the Diploma. But the second is being shaped by commercial pressures and global manufacturing trends.
The result is a field in transition: technicians will likely still be needed for high-level reasoning, complex cases, and quality control, but evolving digital workflows are rapidly reshaping what entry-level looks like.
The road ahead
As the HumanAbility review progresses, the industry can help shape the next generation of technicians. The challenge is balancing two clear realities: the need to preserve a meaningful professional pathway for today while adapting to the rapidly evolving production landscape that will define tomorrow’s workforce.
For Clark and the ADTA, the HumanAbility review represents a rare opportunity for the industry to play a role in reshaping training so it aligns with real laboratory workflows, digital production, and the responsibilities technicians carry today.
Avant sees the same momentum as essential to the future of the profession, not only to improve graduate readiness but to ensure the workforce can transition into the new mix of AI-adjacent skills modern labs will increasingly rely on. “At the end of the day, we’d all love to see a training model that keeps pace with technology,” Salter concludes. “Something that grows with the industry instead of falling behind.”
