Overseas Tradies in Australia: Why Skills Recognition Fails

Australia has an enormous construction pipeline ahead of it, yet we seem to be making it unnecessarily difficult to recognise, recruit and retain the skilled people needed to deliver it.

My nephew came over from the UK on a working holiday visa and has been working for a landscaping business here in Australia. He’s enjoying the work, his employer is happy with him and wants to keep him on. You would think that’s a pretty good outcome, particularly when we keep hearing how difficult it is to find workers.

Except his employer is now trying to work out how to keep him beyond his current visa arrangements, and it’s proving far more complicated than he expected.

This isn’t a large company with an HR department or immigration specialists. It’s a small landscaping business trying to retain somebody who is already working for them. There are visa conditions, sponsorship requirements, costs and paperwork to navigate, and it’s not particularly straightforward for somebody who spends most of their day running a business rather than dealing with government departments.

For a small employer, even the government sponsorship costs can be significant. Under the relevant employer-sponsored visa arrangements, the Skilling Australians Fund levy alone can amount to $1,200 per year of the visa, payable upfront for an eligible small business. That’s before the other costs involved, and assuming the employer and worker qualify for that pathway.

I appreciate we need immigration rules and proper checks, but surely there should be a more straightforward way of dealing with situations like this.

It also got me thinking about the wider construction industry, because the problem doesn’t stop with immigration.

Does Australia really have better tradespeople than the rest of the world?

Take an electrician from the UK who has been working in the industry for 15 years. They’ve completed an apprenticeship, hold their qualifications and have considerable experience working on residential and commercial projects.

They arrive in Australia and discover they can’t simply start working independently as a licensed electrician. In Queensland, the recognition process can involve skills assessments, a 12-month electrical work training permit, supervised work and additional Australian-specific training before obtaining an unrestricted licence.

Now, I understand Australia has different electrical standards. Our wiring rules, installation requirements and regulations aren’t identical to those in the UK, and obviously we need to maintain electrical safety.

But are we really suggesting that somebody who has been a qualified electrician in Manchester for 15 years needs to spend another year demonstrating they can do the job?

Surely we can recognise the experience and qualifications they already have, assess the differences in Australian standards and concentrate any additional training on those areas.

I’m not suggesting we hand somebody an electrical licence when they arrive at the airport. But I do question whether the current process is proportionate to what we’re actually trying to achieve.

And what’s even more interesting is that we haven’t completely sorted this out between Australian states.

An electrician with an equivalent NSW electrical worker licence can work in Queensland under existing recognition arrangements, but if they want to operate their own electrical contracting business, they need to satisfy Queensland’s separate contractor licensing requirements.

Queensland has also remained outside the national Automatic Mutual Recognition scheme, although the state committed in January 2026 to working towards joining.

I understand that different states have their own legislation, insurance requirements and consumer protections, but surely we should be able to make the process of working across state borders as straightforward as possible.

An electrician doesn’t suddenly become less competent when they drive from Tweed Heads into Coolangatta.

And if we can’t make licensing completely seamless within Australia, it’s hardly surprising that experienced tradespeople arriving from overseas find the system difficult.

Who is actually responsible for all this?

The more I’ve looked into this, the more fragmented it appears.

The Federal Government controls immigration, national assessment arrangements deal with overseas qualifications, state governments regulate occupational licensing, and training organisations deliver additional qualifications and competency assessments. Then you have industry bodies and unions involved in discussions around training standards, safety and licensing.

Everybody has their own area of responsibility, but who is actually looking at the overall process and asking whether it makes sense?

I know there will be people who disagree with me on this, particularly around licensing and the role of unions.

The Electrical Trades Union has argued strongly for maintaining licensing requirements on safety grounds. Its Queensland submission opposed winding back licensing, while its national submissions have raised concerns about automatic mutual recognition and the regulatory risks involved.

I can understand the argument. Nobody wants unqualified people carrying out dangerous electrical work, and I certainly wouldn’t want safety standards compromised.

But I think there’s a difference between maintaining high standards and maintaining a complicated system simply because that’s how we’ve always done things.

If an experienced overseas electrician needs additional training, let’s identify exactly what they need to learn. If a licence needs to be recognised across state borders, let’s make that process efficient while preserving the necessary protections.

I’d also be interested to understand whether concerns about competition and wages play any part in resistance to reform. I’m not suggesting they necessarily do, but when we’re facing serious workforce shortages, I think it’s reasonable to examine all the interests involved.

Ultimately, governments make these rules. They should be able to explain what each requirement achieves, what it costs and whether there is a better way of doing it.

Meanwhile, we’re not training enough people

This is the other side of the problem.

According to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research’s March quarter 2026 data, the number of apprentices and trainees in the Construction Trades Workers occupational group has fallen by around 15.5% since March 2022, including a 7.1% decline over the year to March 2026.

There have been some improvements in commencements and completions, which is encouraging, but the overall decline should concern anybody involved in construction.

We keep hearing that young people aren’t interested in trades, but I wonder whether we’ve done enough to make them attractive.

A qualified electrician, plumber or carpenter can earn a very good living in Australia, and many go on to establish successful businesses. Yet for years we’ve encouraged young people to see university as the preferred pathway.

I’ve spent more than 25 years working in construction and property, and I have a university degree myself. But with artificial intelligence changing professional occupations so quickly, I’m not convinced university is necessarily the best option for every young person leaving school.

A trade offers practical skills, opportunities to work for yourself and the potential to build a successful business. The difficulty is getting through those first few years.

Apprenticeship wages aren’t particularly attractive when you’re 18 or 19, trying to afford a car, accommodation and everyday living costs. At the same time, small builders and subcontractors are expected to take on the cost and responsibility of training them.

And these aren’t businesses with large training budgets. They’re often small operators managing clients, employees, materials, compliance and cash flow, sometimes on very tight margins.

Taking on an apprentice means supervision, training, equipment and time. In the early stages, that apprentice may contribute considerably less productive work than a qualified tradesperson, but the employer still has to meet the cost.

So while governments can announce additional training places and incentives, I wonder whether enough attention is being given to the businesses expected to provide the actual training.

If we want more qualified tradespeople in five years, we need to make it worthwhile for businesses to employ apprentices today.

We’ve got billions in construction ahead of us. Who is going to build it?

This is where I think the whole issue becomes much more serious.

Australia has committed to an enormous amount of housing and infrastructure work, and Queensland in particular has major projects associated with the Brisbane 2032 Olympics, alongside transport, health and other infrastructure commitments.

At the same time, we’re supposed to be increasing housing supply.

All these projects need people. Electricians, carpenters, plumbers, concreters, plant operators, supervisors and a whole range of other skilled workers. They’re not all competing for exactly the same trades, but there is certainly overlap.

I’ve spent much of my career looking at construction costs and project feasibility, and one thing is clear. When there aren’t enough qualified people available, builders compete for labour, programmes can extend and construction costs come under pressure.

And those costs don’t simply disappear.

A developer might have planning approval, finance and a perfectly good site, but if the construction cost exceeds what the completed development can economically support, the project doesn’t proceed.

That’s another development that won’t contribute to housing supply, regardless of how many homes the government has promised.

I think this is something we’re not discussing enough. We can announce housing targets, change planning regulations and encourage investment, but somebody still has to build the projects at a cost that makes financial sense.

And if we’re already struggling to find qualified tradespeople, what happens when the infrastructure pipeline really gets moving?

Perhaps we should be asking different questions

Rather than continuing to announce more training places, housing targets and migration programmes, I’d like to see governments spend more time measuring what is actually happening.

How many additional qualified tradespeople are entering the Australian construction workforce each year? How many apprentices are completing their training? How long does it take an experienced electrician from overseas to become fully licensed, and what does the process cost?

I’d also like to know how many small businesses give up trying to sponsor overseas workers because the process becomes too difficult.

These aren’t particularly complicated questions, and with the amount of construction work ahead of us, I think we should know the answers.

We should also be doing more around modular construction, off-site manufacturing and improving productivity. I’ve previously raised the opportunities for Australia to develop more local modular manufacturing capability, and I think that has an important role to play.

But none of that removes the need for qualified tradespeople.

What I’d like to see is a properly coordinated approach between the Federal Government, state governments, licensing authorities, industry bodies and unions. Recognise proven qualifications, concentrate additional training on genuine differences in standards, make interstate licensing as seamless as possible and provide practical assistance for small businesses wanting to recruit or retain overseas workers.

At the same time, we need to make apprenticeships more financially attractive for both young people and the businesses training them.

Coming back to my nephew, his situation is only one example, but I suspect there are plenty of small businesses facing similar frustrations.

They’ve found somebody who wants to work, they’re happy with the person and they’d like to keep them. Yet understanding how to do that legally can be unnecessarily complicated.

Multiply that across an industry already struggling to find workers, and you start to appreciate why this matters.

I’m not suggesting we lower standards or remove necessary protections. But I do think we need to challenge whether the systems we’ve created are actually delivering the outcomes we need.

Australia has an enormous construction pipeline ahead of it, and we can’t afford to make it unnecessarily difficult to train, recognise or retain the people needed to deliver it.

We’ve spent years talking about how many homes Australia needs to build. Perhaps it’s time we started asking whether the people making the rules understand what it actually takes to build them.

Mark Kilroy is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor and Founder and CEO of Koste, with more than 25 years’ experience in construction, property and asset advisory.