Skills in Demand Visa (Subclass 482)

The Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) lets you work in Australia for up to four years for an employer who sponsors you. It replaced the Temporary Skill Shortage visa on 7 December 2024, keeping the same subclass number, so you will see both names in circulation.

For Irish applicants this is the visa that matters most once the Working Holiday visa is out of reach. There is no age limit, so it is the practical route for anyone over 35, and it carries a defined path towards permanent residency.

The catch is that you cannot apply on your own. Everything starts with an Australian employer willing to sponsor you.

The three streams

Which stream your employer nominates you under changes the rules that apply, the speed of processing and whether an occupation list is involved.

Most Irish applicants go through Core Skills. Specialist Skills is worth knowing about because it removes the occupation list entirely — if the salary is high enough, the role does not need to appear on any list, and processing is markedly faster.

There is also a Labour Agreement stream, used where an employer has a negotiated agreement covering specific roles, and an Essential Skills stream aimed at lower-paid shortage sectors that remains under development.

The salary rule most people get wrong

This is the single most common misunderstanding, and it causes nominations to fail.

Your salary has to clear two separate tests at the same time:

1. The income threshold for your stream, a fixed floor set by the Department.
2. The annual market salary rate (AMSR) — what an Australian doing the same job in the same location actually earns.

Whichever of those is higher becomes the minimum your employer must pay. So an offer of AUD 82,000 clears the Core Skills threshold but still fails if the market rate for that role in that city is AUD 95,000.

Two practical notes. The thresholds are indexed each 1 July, and a nomination is assessed against the figure in force when it was lodged, not when it is decided. And the threshold is based on your salary, not on non-monetary extras like a vehicle or accommodation. Confirm the current figure on the official site before relying on any number, including ours.

The English requirement, and why it is easy for you

The visa carries an English language requirement, but holders of an Irish, British, American, Canadian or New Zealand passport are taken to satisfy it without sitting a test.

That is a real advantage. Applicants from most other countries pay for IELTS or PTE and wait for results. You provide your passport.

Be aware this exemption applies to the threshold requirement for this visa. It does not carry over to the points test used for permanent residency, where an Irish passport only ever earns you zero English points — a trap worth understanding early if PR is your longer-term goal.

Finding a sponsor

Your employer must either already be an approved Standard Business Sponsor or apply to become one. Many larger Australian employers already hold approval; smaller ones may not know the process exists.

Sponsorship is a real commitment, involving obligations, record-keeping and cost, so employers do not offer it casually. When you approach Australian employers, it helps to know which stream your occupation is likely to sit in and roughly what the salary floor will be, rather than asking them to work it out.

Where Irish applicants tend to have most success is in occupations with recognised Australian shortages — healthcare, construction and engineering, skilled trades, and technology roles.

Who pays for what

The employer-side costs are legally the employer's, and it is unlawful for them to be passed on to you. If a prospective employer or an intermediary asks you to cover the nomination fee or the levy, treat that as a serious warning sign about the arrangement as a whole.

How the process runs

1. You secure a genuine job offer from an Australian employer.
2. The employer becomes an approved sponsor, if not already.
3. The employer lodges a nomination for your specific role and occupation.
4. You lodge your subclass 482 application, linked to that nomination.
5. You complete health examinations and provide police certificates, including Garda vetting.
6. The nomination and visa are decided, often together.

Our requirements guide covers the Garda vetting process and document standards in more detail.

Changing jobs, and what happens if it ends

The old rules gave you 60 days to find a new sponsor if your employment ended. That is now 180 days, and you can work for other employers during that window while you look for a new sponsor.

That change matters more than it sounds. It removed the situation where losing a job meant leaving the country within two months, which is what made people reluctant to leave a bad employer.

You still need a new approved sponsor to nominate you before the window closes.

The route to permanent residency

The usual path is the Employer Nomination Scheme (subclass 186) through its Temporary Residence Transition stream, available after two years working for your sponsoring employer — reduced from three years under the old rules.

This is the most realistic permanent residency route for many Irish applicants, because it does not depend on winning a points-ranked competition. Your employer nominating you again matters more than your points score.

The alternative is the points-tested program, covered on our permanent residency page. Some people run both in parallel: work on a 482 while building an expression of interest.

Coming from a Working Holiday year

A common Irish sequence is a Working Holiday visa, then a 482 with an employer met during that year, then a 186.

It works because you are in the country, the employer knows your work, and Australian experience strengthens everything that follows. If that is your plan, raise sponsorship with your employer well before your Working Holiday visa is close to expiring — nomination and visa processing together take months, not weeks.

Where applications go wrong

• A salary that clears the income threshold but not the market rate
• Work experience that does not clearly match the nominated occupation
• An occupation nominated under Core Skills that is not on the current list
• A role that looks created for the applicant rather than genuinely needed
• Police certificates missing for countries lived in for 12 months or more
• Leaving sponsorship discussions until a current visa is nearly expired

How we can help

We help Irish applicants prepare the visa side of a sponsored application: evidencing your skills and experience against the nominated occupation, assembling documents, and coordinating timing with your employer's nomination.

We are not registered migration agents in Australia. Employer-sponsored cases involving a refused nomination, a sponsor under sanction or a contested market salary assessment may need a registered agent, and we will tell you if we think yours is one of them.

You can apply directly yourself at any time through the Department of Home Affairs. Get in touch if you have an offer and want the application reviewed before it is lodged.