Since FY22-23, Australia’s skilled migration has been on the rise, drawing growing attention from people overseas. With more favourable policy settings, more international students now want to stay on after graduation. Among them, Subclass 189, 190 and 491 attract the most interest. In practice, when we run a consultation and assessment, it always comes back to three core questions: skills assessment–EOI points-securing an invitation.
Today we’ve put together one in-depth explainer. There’s a lot to cover, so thank you in advance to everyone who reads it through to the end.
The most central issue in skilled migration · skills assessment
For points-based skilled migration (Subclass 189/190/491), the single most central issue is the skills assessment, also known as the technical assessment. Without a skills assessment, even a straight 9 across all four bands of IELTS won’t help.
What occupation can my background be assessed for?
What occupation you can be assessed for depends mainly on your qualifications and work experience. Qualifications and work experience vary widely, and in a real assessment it isn’t always obvious at first glance which occupation you can be assessed for. If you can’t make a preliminary judgement about which occupation your background fits, you may need to have a professional assess it first.
But in some cases there’s a “built-in disadvantage” and a direct assessment simply isn’t possible:
– Different systems make assessment impossible. For example, doctors and lawyers trained in China don’t hold Australian registration, so they can’t be assessed.
– Some occupations have very high requirements. For example, teachers face a language requirement of IELTS 8 in listening and speaking and 7 in reading and writing, which may lead many applicants from China to give up outright.
– Some job duties simply don’t map to a migration occupation. For example, a bank teller, a company clerk, or a car salesperson can’t be assessed for a suitable migration occupation.
In all of the situations above, the only realistic option is usually “study first, migrate later” — coming to Australia to study a so-called “migration major” first. That’s because, when it comes to the skills assessment, onshore international students and offshore workers are treated very differently.
If you need to study first and migrate later
1. Why do almost all international students study Accounting, IT or Engineering?
Because these three fields are comparatively the easiest to obtain a skills assessment for. But the flip side of “easy” is competition. Migration is an extremely cut-throat space, and with international students piling into Accounting, IT and Engineering, invitation cut-offs have kept rising in recent years — in the first two years of the pandemic, even 100 points struggled to secure an invitation. Even though the Department of Home Affairs took the rare step last December of releasing 35,000 Subclass 189 invitations, Accounting, IT and Engineering still generally needed 85 points to be invited (auditors being invited at 65 points was an anomaly, which we’ll explain in the second section).
Of these three broad categories, Accounting is the hardest, followed by IT, then Engineering. So when planning early on, alongside whether you can get in and graduate, anyone with migration intentions should factor in the difficulty of the competition that follows.
2. How should international students choose a field of study?
① Can you have it all? No.
Many people considering study abroad ask: which major is best for migration? Some are a little greedy and ask for a major that’s simple, fast, easy to migrate with, easy to find work in, doesn’t require studying in a regional area, and on top of all that, has cheap tuition fees. Honestly, we’d love to know the answer that ticks every box too.
The truth is, there’s no such thing as a perfect major — only one that’s relatively well suited to you as an individual. Which major to study has to be chosen based on your own circumstances, and the choice usually has to be made by the applicant, because it’s your own life. Choosing your own life for yourself is the responsible attitude to take.
② Migration / work / interest / graduation — what’s your order of priority?
For example, nursing and teaching have recently been relatively easy to migrate with and easy to find work in, but you may well have no interest in studying nursing or working as a teacher — especially male students. On top of that, the entry language requirements for nursing and teaching are high: the four 7s required for nursing entry can’t be waived, and the 7788 needed for the teaching skills assessment can only be waived in a small number of cases.
For another example, IT is studied mostly by male students, while female students may have no interest in it at all; a Master of Engineering usually requires an engineering bachelor’s degree as a prerequisite;
and for yet another, social work or community work is easy to find work in, but the job usually involves dealing with “vulnerable groups” (such as people with mental illness), which many people may not be able to handle.
So you absolutely have to make your choice based on your own circumstances.
③ If migration is the top priority, make sure you can — or can easily — obtain a skills assessment
That said, the choice itself can be narrowed to a range based on your priorities. If you want to migrate, then the course you study must make it as easy as possible to produce a skills assessment — otherwise the study is wasted.
For example, a Bachelor of Arts/Science or a Master of Finance is generally very hard to translate into a migration occupation.
Some fields offer a chance of an assessment but usually require one year of work experience.For example, Actuary and all other occupations assessed by VETASSESS. Once one year of work experience is needed to obtain the skills assessment, the difficulty goes up. You have to consider: can you find that work? How long will it take? Do you even genuinely want to do that job? So think it through very carefully.
Below are the skills-assessment requirements for the most common onshore fields of study. When choosing a major, you must factor the skills-assessment requirements in as well.
Onshore — skills-assessment requirements for common fields of study
a) IT – After completing an IT course, onshore international students must have one year of relevant work experience, or complete a PY, before they can obtain a skills assessment
b) Engineering – For any course on the EA-accredited list, graduates can use their qualification documents to obtain a skills assessment directly
c) Nursing – As long as the course leads to registration as an Australian nurse, and you achieve PTE 65 in each band after graduating, you can obtain a skills assessment
d) Teaching – After completing a teaching course (which must include at least 45 days of supervised teaching placement), you need IELTS 8 in listening and speaking and 7 in reading and writing (PTE cannot be substituted — this is extremely demanding, far harder than four 79s in PTE) to pass the skills assessment.
The 7788 can be waived where:you have completed at least four years of undergraduate-level (or higher) study and obtained a degree, and those studies were taken only in one of six countries — the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada or Ireland — in which case the IELTS requirement can be waived.
Because of this waiver rule, a three-year bachelor’s degree plus a one-year Graduate Diploma in Early Childhood Education is now very popular. If you already hold a three-year bachelor’s degree in any field in Australia, then after completing a one-year early-childhood Graduate Diploma you can waive the 7788 and obtain an early-childhood skills assessment. More and more institutions are now offering early-childhood Graduate Diploma courses — it can be considered a “small shortcut”.
e) Quantity Surveyor – Study an accredited course and you can apply on graduation (the official website’s new policy states one year of work experience is required, but in practice graduates of accredited onshore courses have not yet been asked to provide work experience when applying)
f) Architect – You must study an AACA-accredited course, and can apply for the skills assessment on graduation
g) Social Worker – After completing a social work course, you need IELTS 7 in all four bands (you may combine two IELTS sittings taken within six months of each other to reach four 7s, with an overall band of 7 and no band below 6.5) to obtain a skills assessment
h) ACWA Community Worker – Study an accredited course, achieve PTE 65 in each band, and have three months of relevant work experience to meet the requirements
i) Interpreter – Complete a paraprofessional interpreting course and pass the paraprofessional interpreting exam to obtain an interpreter skills assessment (only on the 491/190 lists)
k) Occupations assessed by VETASSESS – There are a great many of these. A small number are on the 189 list — for example Actuary, Statistician and Economist, which are fairly niche. But most of the popular ones are only on the 491/190 lists — for example Marketing Specialist, Restaurant Manager, Massage Therapist and so on, which usually require a relevant qualification plus one year of relevant work experience, or an unrelated qualification plus three years of work experience
l) Other niche occupations — for example Speech Pathologist, which requires studying the relevant qualification
Offshore — common occupations offshore workers can be assessed for
For offshore workers the situation is very different, because offshore workers usually haven’t studied an accredited course, so the skills assessment is generally harder. Below is a brief rundown of the migration occupations most common among offshore workers.
The occupations offshore workers can choose from are more limited, often falling into one of the VETASSESS / IT / Engineering categories. IT and Engineering have a shot at Subclass 189, while VETASSESS occupations mainly go through 190/491. Overseas applicants face even fiercer competition, and their scores won’t have an edge over recent graduates — generally only a few state governments are relatively friendly toward offshore applicants in a small number of occupations.
From the start of FY22-23 to now has been a rare period in which multiple state nomination programs are very welcoming toward people overseas — so seize the opportunity.
m) IT – Requires an IT qualification plus at least 2 years of relevant work experience. If the IT qualification isn’t closely related to the nominated occupation, you may need 4-5 years of work experience to obtain a skills assessment
n) Engineering – Once you hold an engineering bachelor’s degree, if you work in a relevant field you can usually obtain a skills assessment by writing a CDR. For example, suppose you hold a degree in Electronic Engineering and, after graduating, work designing circuits at an electronics factory; you can then write three CDRs to obtain a skills assessment as an Electronics Engineer.
If, after obtaining an engineering degree, your work experience isn’t related to the engineering degree, there is still a strong chance of obtaining a skills assessment as an Engineering Technologist.
Also, a non-Australian qualification used for an engineering skills assessment requires an English level of IELTS 6 in all four bands.
o) Occupations assessed by VETASSESS – For example Program or Project Administrator, Conference and Event Organiser, English teacher (TESOL), Marketing Specialist, Human Resource Adviser and so on usually require a relevant qualification plus one year of relevant work experience. Some occupations can be met with an unrelated qualification plus three years of work experience.
The second core question · building up EOI points
Once the skills assessment is sorted, we come to the second core question: building up your EOI points.First you have to meet the Department’s minimum points requirement before you can lodge. Once you’re eligible to lodge, you then work toward a higher score.
The Department’s minimum requirements
The minimum requirements to lodge an EOI with the Department are an English level of 6 in all four bands (PTE accepted), a skills assessment, and 65 EOI points. The minimum EOI score required is 65 points.
How many points do you need to build up yourself to lodge an EOI?
The Department’s rules set the minimum lodgement and invitation score at 65 points, whether for 189, 491 or 190. However, the 189 score is the “bare” score, while 491 and 190 add state-nomination points on top. A 491 state nomination gives an extra 15 points, and 190 an extra 5 points. That means:
189 – you need to build up to 65 points yourself
190 – you need to build up to 60 points yourself
491 – you need to build up to 50 points yourself. So for those with too few points, 491 may be a lifeline — all the more so with the recent good news that 491 can convert to 191 with no income requirement.
Does reaching 65 EOI points guarantee an invitation?
Having 65 EOI points definitely lets you lodge — that much is certain. But how many points you actually need to be invited is one of the all-time hard questions.
When we talk about building up a higher score to be invited, we’re mainly referring to the Subclass 189 Skilled Independent visa. In reality, some state nomination programs also favour higher scorers when nominating for 491/190. For example, in states such as WA, NSW and QLD, within the same occupation, higher scorers go first.
① The fields that are easy to be invited in
For certain in-demand or niche fields — such as nursing, teaching, social work and a range of medical professions — an invitation at 65 points is possible, and in the past FY22-23 the odds were quite good.
Many people then ask: they’re fine at 65 points now, but what about in a year or two? What about after I graduate?All we can say is that these occupations currently appear to be holding their level of shortage and priority in Australia.
But you also have to bear in mind that competition will intensify. Migration is, after all, extremely cut-throat — if you don’t build up points, others will.
For the popular occupations Accounting, IT and Engineering, even in that round of 35,000 invitations, 85 points or more was needed.
③ Most fields fall in the middle, and are harder to predict
The two examples above are the extremes, whereas most occupations sit somewhere between them — not too hard, not the most competitive, not too crowded, but with a certain profile and applicant base. You also have to factor in how many invitations are issued per round; within a single financial year a given stream can be very volatile, which makes “predicting the cut-off” the hardest part — this round tells you nothing about the next.
Take FY22-23 for example: marketing, graphic design and finance are classic cases — they were all occupations suddenly “favoured” by NSW, with invitations at 65/70 points early on. Being occupations common both overseas and in Australia, a lot of people rushed to get assessed and lodge, so by the latter part of the financial year, when quotas were no longer so generous, cut-offs had risen by 5-15 points.
So all we can say is that the higher your score, the better your chances usually are.
After meeting the minimum 65 points and lodging the EOI, if you later score higher in your English test, obtain a PY/NAATI certificate, or accrue enough working time, you can update the EOI at any time to add those points (note: an EOI is only valid for 2 years; if it’s about to expire and you still haven’t been invited, we recommend lodging a fresh EOI)
Common ways to build up points
International students:mainly language, PY (Accounting/IT/Engineering only), NAATI and work experience. (Other points come naturally — for example points for qualifications, the two-year study bonus, and so on.)
Offshore workers:mainly points for language and work experience; NAATI is also well worth considering, since it’s now an online exam (the CCL Test).
Language is the fastest points to obtain;PTE 65 in all four bands gives 10 points, and 79 in all four gives 20 points, which makes it very easy to open up a gap. NAATI exam sittings are usually only available a few months out, so anyone wanting these points needs to book early. Work experience takes time to clock up. So language points are the most direct and fastest to obtain.
A word more about “partner points” — here’s a simple table:
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No partner (single), or a partner who is a PR/Citizen
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Has a partner, and the partner does not have four 6s
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Has a partner with four 6s but no skills assessment
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Has a partner with four 6s and a skills assessment
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As the table shows, you either need to be single or have a partner with four 6s and a skills assessment; otherwise the partner points are reduced, which lowers your overall EOI score.
The third core question · how to secure an invitation
Once the skills assessment is sorted and you’ve worked hard to build up your points, we arrive at the third core question: how to secure an invitation — specifically, how to be invited under a state nomination
Because even with a skills assessment and enough points, you may still be unable to get invited. It could be a popular occupation where scores are highly competitive (189 is the most fiercely contested of all streams), or it could be an occupation not on the 189 list, which can only obtain an invitation via state nomination.
How do you get invited for 189?
It’s both simple and difficult to explain. For 189, within the same field the higher scorer wins — it’s purely a points contest. So you work hard to lodge, build up a high score and wait, while hoping for a bit of luck.
State nomination splits into 190 and 491
190 is a green card (PR), while 491 is a 5-year regional work visa, which can also be understood as a near-PR (Australia’s so-called “regional areas” cover a very wide area — apart from the city areas of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, everywhere else is called regional, and even the national capital counts as regional).
What exactly are the requirements for state nomination?
This question is actually very complex, because every state is different — each has its own occupation list, the requirements for 190 and 491 are usually different, and even different regional areas within a single state can differ (NSW). On top of that, state-nomination policy changes under the influence of many factors. Generally, as now at the start of each new financial year, you have to wait for programs to open and for announcements to be made.
Tasmania has opened its application channel for the new financial year
Canberra issued the financial year’s first round of Matrix invitations today, 13 July, which also confirms that the lodgement requirements and occupation list will carry over from FY22-23 (for details, see today’s second post)
In fact, several state governments have indicated that FY23-24 policy won’t differ much from the previous FY22-23.
Which state’s nomination should I apply for?
After getting your head around each state’s requirements, you may feel a bit lost: which state’s nomination should I actually apply for? My answer is: based on your own circumstances, apply for whichever you can. If you can’t apply for any, then create the conditions and apply once you meet the requirements.
Because 190 is PR, its requirements are relatively higher. If it’s out of reach and very hard to create the conditions for, then by all means consider 491.
It’s a bit like courting a girlfriend: if you can’t win over the campus belle, you can go for the class belle; and if you can’t win the class belle, ending up with a sweet “little flower” is perfectly fine too.
On the migration journey, you usually won’t have that happy dilemma of having many migration pathways to pick from all at once. The reality is usually that you have to make a certain amount of effort, even sacrifices, before it’s within reach.
It’s like finding a girlfriend: you usually won’t have several women throwing themselves at you to pick from all at once; rather, it’s only after sustained, proactive effort and giving on your part that you can find the one who’s right for you.
If you have no idea which direction to put your effort into, then I suggest you seek help from a professional.
If you’d like to arrange a migration consultation and assessment, get in touch with our client service team below
But we’d still like to stress: before consulting a professional, it’s best to have a basic understanding of the Australian skilled migration pathway. Take a look at the state government websites (and do bookmark this article too) to make everyone’s time more efficient!
Official links for all state nomination programs
https://www.nsw.gov.au/visas-and-migration/skilled-visas/common-questions-about-skilled-visas
https://liveinmelbourne.vic.gov.au/migrate/skilled-migration-visas
https://migration.qld.gov.au/occupation-lists/queensland-skilled-occupation-lists-(qsol)
https://migration.wa.gov.au/our-services-support/state-nominated-migration-program
ACT (Australian Capital Territory):
https://www.act.gov.au/migration/skilled-migrants/act-government-process/act-nomination-process
https://www.migration.tas.gov.au/skilled_migrants
https://www.migration.sa.gov.au/nomination-process/about-state-nomination
https://theterritory.com.au/migrate/migrate-to-work/northern-territory-government-visa-nomination/eligibility
In summary
The core questions for skilled migration under 189/190/491 are exactly these three set out above. If you’re truly set on migrating to Australia, the very first thing to do is resolve the core issue of the skills assessment and meet the Department’s minimum requirements (four 6s, 65 points).Then bide your time: build up points while patiently waiting for changes in migration policy (mainly state-nomination policy), and seize the opportunity the moment it appears.
A skills assessment is usually valid for 2 or 3 years, and language results for 3 years.Migration policy, meanwhile, often changes — especially at the start of a new financial year. If you only scramble to start preparing your skills assessment and language when a big policy boost appears (such as low-points invitations, or your occupation suddenly landing on a state government’s list), you may well miss the boat, because opportunity always goes to those who prepared first.
End of article.
