What it is
A skills assessment is an independent finding, made by a body the Department of Home Affairs has appointed for a given occupation, that a person’s qualifications and employment history match the duties of that occupation as defined in ANZSCO, the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations. It sits ahead of the General Skilled Migration points test in the Migration Regulations 1994, made under the Migration Act 1958: the visa criteria test the assessment at the time of invitation, so an Expression of Interest naming a nominated occupation is, in practice, not submitted through SkillSelect without a positive assessment in that occupation already completed.
The assessment is not a visa decision and it is not made by the Department. It is made by a separate authority under criteria that authority publishes and updates itself, and the Department relies on the outcome as one of the criteria a nominated applicant must meet.
How it works in practice
Which body assesses a given case is fixed by the ANZSCO code of the nominated occupation, not by choice. The Department of Home Affairs publishes the current list of assessing authorities and the occupations each one covers. In broad terms:
- ACS (Australian Computer Society) assesses information and communications technology occupations.
- Engineers Australia assesses engineering occupations, covering categories such as professional engineer, engineering technologist, engineering associate, and engineering manager, along with a separate competency demonstration pathway for a defined set of engineering occupations.
- VETASSESS is the general and professional catch-all authority, covering a wide range of occupations that do not fall to one of the specialist bodies, from business and management roles through to many trades-adjacent and community-services occupations.
- TRA (Trades Recognition Australia) assesses most trade occupations, generally through a combination of qualification checks and practical or on-the-job assessment.
- ANMAC (Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council) assesses nursing and midwifery occupations, working alongside the profession’s registration requirements.
Each authority sets its own application process, evidentiary requirements, and internal timeframes, and each publishes how long a positive outcome remains current for migration purposes. Because the gap between an assessment being issued and a visa actually being decided can run for an extended period, currency is checked more than once: at Expression of Interest, again if an invitation follows, and again at visa application. The applicable settings should always be confirmed directly with the assessing authority and against the current Home Affairs requirements for the visa in question, rather than assumed from an earlier matter.
How an agent approaches it
Before any assessment application is lodged, a Registered Migration Agent works through a set of questions rather than starting from the occupation the client wants:
- What do the client’s actual day-to-day duties support, based on the evidence available, and which ANZSCO code does that evidence fit, as opposed to which code the client would prefer?
- Where duties genuinely span more than one plausible occupation code, what does each code mean for the assessing authority involved, the evidentiary bar that authority applies, and the occupation list settings that follow from it?
- Does the employment evidence exist in a form the assessing authority will accept: payslips, superannuation records, tax records, organisational charts, and a reference that actually describes duties rather than a job title?
- Is the qualification recognised on the terms the assessing authority applies, and if not, does a skills-and-experience pathway realistically apply instead?
- What is the current validity setting for this authority and this occupation, and does the expected pipeline through Expression of Interest, invitation, and visa application fit inside it?
This is a factor-by-factor exercise against the criteria the assessing authority and the Department apply. It is not a prediction of what any authority will decide on a given file.
What typically goes wrong
The most common failure is misalignment between the nominated ANZSCO code and what the evidence actually shows. A client who wants a particular occupation code because it sits on a more favourable list, or matches a job title on a business card, can still fail the assessment if payslips, contracts, and reference letters describe different duties. The fix is to build the occupation choice from the evidence, not the other way around.
Reference letters are the second recurring problem. Common defects include a generic list of duties copied from a position description rather than what the person actually did, no company letterhead or contactable signatory, a signatory who cannot be verified as having supervised the person, gaps or overlaps in the employment timeline that are not explained, and translations that do not match the original document word for word. Assessing authorities test these letters closely because they are usually the only independent evidence of what the work actually involved.
Other recurring issues include letting an assessment lapse past its validity setting during a long Expression of Interest wait, changing employers or duties after an assessment is issued without checking whether the original assessment still matches the new evidence, and assuming a positive assessment from one authority automatically satisfies a different visa’s separate skilled-occupation or points-test settings. Each of these is a currency or alignment problem, and each is checked for specifically before a matter is treated as ready to progress.
Common questions
What is a skills assessment and why do I need one?
It is an independent check by an authority appointed by the Department of Home Affairs that a person's qualifications and work experience match a nominated skilled occupation. For the points-tested pathways the Regulations test it at the time of invitation, so in practice a positive assessment is in hand before an Expression of Interest naming that occupation is submitted.
Who decides which authority assesses my occupation?
The nominated occupation's ANZSCO code determines the assessing authority, not personal preference. The Department of Home Affairs publishes the current list of assessing authorities and the occupations each one covers.
Can I choose which occupation to be assessed against?
Where a person's duties genuinely span more than one occupation code, occupation choice is a strategic question a Registered Migration Agent works through with the client, weighing which code the evidence actually supports against which assessing authority and criteria apply. It is not a matter of picking whichever code looks more convenient.
How long does a skills assessment stay current?
Each assessing authority sets its own validity settings, and the Expression of Interest and visa stages both check currency against the rules in force at the time. The current position should always be confirmed on the assessing authority's own page rather than assumed from a past matter.