What Australia has to offer to its international graduates

Every year, approximately over 1 Lakh (100,000) Indian students pursue education abroad in Australia. This number, first achieved around 2017, has been steadily increasing ever since. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic played a spoilsport to that, but now with the borders open again and Australia welcoming international students, we can expect a further spike in this number.

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Australia is one of the most popular destinations for Indian students along with other favourites such as the USA, UK, and Canada to name a few. High-quality education, with tremendous facilities across most institutions, affordable, and a very luring post-study work permit offering, makes it a very popular choice.


Most students look to pursue fields like engineering, technology-related fields, earth sciences, computer science, business & management, medical sciences, nursing, accounting & finance, and tourism & hospitality management to name some. At least five Australian universities feature in the Top 50 in the world, which adds further to the rising demand and guarantee of quality education.

Australia’s lucrative post-study work policy as mentioned earlier is another key reason for students to pursue it as a destination. For students looking at studying in Australia, there are three main post-study work visa options to get familiar with.

The Post-study work-stream visa
This is the most popular and flexible work visa for most students and falls under the visa subclass 485. Students can apply for this visa immediately upon successful completion of their course. This visa category is applicable for bachelors, masters (coursework & research), and doctoral level students. Under this, students can work in any field or job and have multiple entry rights to and from Australia. It offers the most flexibility to work in the country upon graduation. This visa category is not applicable for those who are pursuing a standalone diploma or trade qualification.

Under this category Bachelors students studying in main cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane can work for two years, Masters students can work for three years and Doctoral students can work for four years.

As per new regulations, students studying in other cities, regional centres or areas such as Adelaide, Perth and Canberra to name a few (a more detailed list is available on the Australian Department of Home Affairs website), will be eligible to extend their work study visa by upto 2 additional years based on their location and course of study. This is a big bonus for several thousand students.

The Graduate Work Stream visa
Also falling under the visa subclass 485, this work visa is for graduates with skills and qualifications that are relevant to specific occupations Australia needs. Under this category, graduates can work for 18 months, and this has temporarily been allowed to extend to 24 months, for visas that were granted after December 1, 2021. The restriction with this visa category is that the holder can only work in the specific skill area and no extension to this visa is possible unless the employer extends through sponsorship or the holder applies for another relevant visa category.

Skilled- Recognized graduate visa
This falls under the visa subclass 476 and is largely for engineering graduates who have graduated from certain qualified institutions. The student must be under the age of 31 to meet the eligibility requirements for this category. Holders of this visa can work in Australia for up to 18 months following which they would need to apply for another visa in order to stay longer or get sponsored by their employers under a different visa class. Overall, the post-study work stream visa allows the most flexibility to holders allowing them to work in any field in order to support themselves and build a career.

Highest Paying Jobs In Australia
Based on the 2022 Australia graduate salary guide by Prosple, the Mining, Oil & Gas industry offers the highest average annual salaries at AU$81,834, while the Media & Communications industry comes in second at AU$76.414, followed by Recruitment & HR (AU$ 75,455) Engineering Consulting (AU$73,854), the Health sector (AU$73,000) and Entertainment, Travel & Hospitality (AU$71,103).

Australia being rich in natural resources offers opportunities in several engineering fields and other fields requiring technical expertise. Also, with a growing and ageing population, nursing and medical fields are in demand and offer strong areas of employment. The financial sector is well known and coupled with the latest technological developments, a lot of newer jobs are emerging in analytical and business-related fields

The author is currently the Head of Overseas Education Counseling at Yocket.