There is no honest list of easiest jobs for Australian permanent residence, and anyone publishing one is guessing. There is published evidence, and it points somewhere specific and slightly uncomfortable.
Two companions to this page: the wider guide to Australian permanent residence for Sri Lankans, which covers the pathways, points, English and costs, and whether a Sri Lankan Attorney-at-Law can practise in Australia, for the one occupation that works differently from every other.
Everything below reflects the published position as at 20 September 2026, and each figure carries its own date. Australian settings move several times a year. This is general information about published Australian rules, not immigration assistance, which in Australia is reserved to registered migration agents and Australian legal practitioners.
What the Department actually invited
Start with what the Department invited. In the subclass 189 round of 4 June 2026, the most recent published round, 10,000 expressions of interest were invited and the Department published the minimum score invited for every occupation that received an invitation. Eight of the occupations Sri Lankan applicants most commonly hold do not appear in that table at all.
| Occupation | Sri Lankan primary applicants, 2024-25 | Minimum score invited, 4 June 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Civil engineering professionals | 245 | Not invited |
| Software and applications programmers | 237 | Not invited |
| Construction managers | 201 | Not invited. Construction Project Manager was invited at 80 |
| Accountants | 201 | Not invited |
| Chefs | 128 | Not invited |
| Electrical engineers | 123 | Not invited |
| Early childhood (pre-primary) teachers | 118 | Not invited |
| Industrial, mechanical and production engineers | 112 | Not invited |
| ICT business and systems analysts | 105 | Not invited |
| General practitioners and resident medical officers | 87 | General Practitioner invited at 75 |
Eight of the ten commonest Sri Lankan skilled occupations received no subclass 189 invitation in that round. The Department's own footnote explains that a blank means either that no expression of interest in the occupation was available to invite, or that the ones available did not meet the round's parameters. It does not say which, and neither should anybody else.
What was invited, and at what score, belongs alongside it.
| Score | Occupations |
|---|---|
| 65 | Bricklayer, Carpenter, Carpenter and Joiner, Joiner, Drainer, Electrician (General), Electrician (Special Class), Plumber (General), Roof Plumber, Airconditioning and Mechanical Services Plumber, Glazier, Solid Plasterer, Fibrous Plasterer, Stonemason, Wall and Floor Tiler |
| 70 | Gasfitter |
| 75 | General Practitioner, most Registered Nurse specialisations, Midwife, Physiotherapist, Occupational Therapist, Podiatrist, Speech Pathologist, Social Worker, Audiologist, Clinical Psychologist, Paediatrician, Emergency Medicine Specialist, Secondary School Teacher, Special Needs Teacher |
| 80 | Engineering Manager, Mining Engineer, Petroleum Engineer, Physicist, Metallurgist, Construction Project Manager, Child Care Centre Manager, Solicitor, Barrister, Cardiologist, Psychiatrist, Ophthalmologist |
| 85 | Chemist, Sonographer, Dermatologist, Orthopaedic Surgeon, Surgeon (General), Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, Gastroenterologist, Special Education Teachers nec |
| 90 | Actuary, Statistician |
| 95 | Electronics Engineer, Telecommunications Engineer, Telecommunications Network Engineer, Biotechnologist, Microbiologist, Marine Biologist, Life Scientist (General), Multimedia Specialist, Thoracic Medicine Specialist |
| 100 | Urologist |
Two things follow, and neither is what the migration marketing says. The building and construction trades are the only occupations invited at the 65-point threshold, which means a qualified Sri Lankan electrician or plumber with a trade assessment is in a materially better position on this measure than a civil engineer or a software developer. And mainstream information technology does not appear in the round at all.
Three cautions. It is the last round of the 2025-26 program year, and occupation ceilings reset when a new year starts, so a round expected by 30 September 2026 may look different. A published minimum score tells you what was invited, not what you will need next time. And a strong position in an invitation round is worthless without a positive skills assessment, which is a separate contest.
What the labour market data says
A second strand points the same way, and it is not a migration document at all. Jobs and Skills Australia publishes an Occupation Shortage List, which is a labour market assessment rather than a migration eligibility list. On the 2025 list, Accountant is rated no shortage nationally and in all eight States and Territories, every mainstream information technology occupation is rated no shortage, and Chef is in shortage only regionally. Civil Engineer and Construction Project Manager go the other way and are in shortage nationally and in all eight jurisdictions. So two of the four largest Sri Lankan skilled occupations are ones Australia does not consider itself short of, and two are occupations it is short of that were still not invited in the June round. The second pair is the more revealing: a national shortage is a reason for an employer to sponsor, not a reason for the Department to issue an invitation.
And there is the outcome data, which settles it. Of the 9,444 permanent places granted to Sri Lankan citizens in 2024-25, only 501 came through Skilled Independent. More than 7,600 came through Regional, State or Territory nomination and employer sponsorship. Sri Lankans are already reaching Australian permanent residence overwhelmingly through sponsorship rather than through the points test, and that was true before this year's settings made the points test harder to reach.
Processing priority is not eligibility
The third strand is processing priority. Ministerial Directions 121 and 122 put applications relating to construction, healthcare, teaching, agriculture, aquaculture, fishing and resources, or to Australia's law enforcement and defence interests, in the first tier. Direction 122, which governs the permanent and provisional skilled visas, has four tiers; Direction 121, which governs the subclass 482, has five, the extra one being for the Specialist Skills stream. That is a queue position, not a qualification. Priority processing does not lower any eligibility criterion, does not create a nomination and does not produce an invitation. An application in a priority sector that does not meet the criteria is refused faster than one that is not.
Set the two together and the pattern is consistent: construction trades, healthcare and teaching are where the Australian system is currently pointing, both in who it invites and in whose applications it reaches first. That is a statement about Australian settings in September 2026, not a recommendation to retrain.
Skills assessments, which decide more cases than qualifications do
Almost every skilled pathway requires a positive skills assessment from the authority designated for the nominated occupation, and a Sri Lankan degree does not establish it by itself. The authority varies by occupation, and the obvious guess is often wrong.
| Occupation | Assessing authority | List |
|---|---|---|
| Civil, electrical, mechanical, industrial and production engineers | Engineers Australia | MLTSSL |
| Software engineer, developer programmer, analyst programmer, ICT business analyst, systems analyst | Australian Computer Society | MLTSSL |
| Accountant (general), management accountant, taxation accountant, external auditor | Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, CPA Australia or the Institute of Public Accountants, at the applicant's choice | MLTSSL |
| Construction Project Manager | VETASSESS | MLTSSL |
| Project Builder | VETASSESS | ROL only, so no 189 or 190 |
| Registered nurses and midwives | Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council | MLTSSL |
| General Practitioner | Medical Board of Australia | MLTSSL |
| Resident Medical Officer | Medical Board of Australia | STSOL, so no 189 |
| Secondary School Teacher | Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership | MLTSSL |
| Early Childhood (Pre-primary School) Teacher | Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority | MLTSSL |
| Architect | Architects Accreditation Council of Australia | MLTSSL |
| Quantity Surveyor | Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors | MLTSSL |
| Motor mechanic, chef, electrician, carpenter, plumber | Trades Recognition Australia | MLTSSL |
| Cook | Trades Recognition Australia | STSOL, so no 189 |
Four traps in it each end an application on their own.
- Chef is on the MLTSSL and Cook is on the STSOL. In ordinary Sri Lankan usage the two words are interchangeable. In Australian migration they are not, and only one of them supports a subclass 189.
- Construction managers go to VETASSESS, not to Engineers Australia. And within that group, Project Builder is on the ROL only, which supports neither a 189 nor a 190.
- Early childhood teachers go to the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority. The obvious guess, the teaching institute that assesses secondary teachers, is the wrong body.
- General Practitioner is on the MLTSSL; Resident Medical Officer is on the STSOL. Same broad career, different list, different visas available.
A migration skills assessment is also not professional registration. A Sri Lankan nurse who obtains an assessment from the nursing accreditation council has satisfied a visa criterion, not obtained the right to nurse in Australia, which runs separately through the Nursing and Midwifery Board and Ahpra. The same separation applies to doctors, teachers and architects. Two processes, two timetables, and the migration one does not carry the professional one. Lawyers are the exception, and the section below explains why.
Two further practical points. Engineers Australia's list of acceptable secondary employment documents expressly includes employee provident fund contributions, which is one of the few places an Australian assessing body names something a Sri Lankan applicant will actually have; the authority still reserves the right to specify country-specific documents. And for the trades, Trades Recognition Australia's offshore programme nominates countries occupation by occupation. Sri Lanka is nominated for Chef and Cook but not for Motor Mechanic or Carpenter, which does not exclude a Sri Lankan mechanic or carpenter: the authority states that where the occupation is on the offshore list but the country is not, an applicant may still choose to be assessed through the programme. The programme is compulsory for every country for Electrician, Plumber and two other occupations.
On timing, the assessment can follow the expression of interest, but it must exist at the date of invitation and must have been obtained within the three years before it. That is the real deadline, and it is the reason the assessment belongs at the front of any plan rather than at the end.
Legal occupations are the exception to almost everything in this section, because the Department treats Australian admission itself as the skills assessment. That is dealt with separately in can a Sri Lankan Attorney-at-Law practise in Australia.
On the documents, the important warning is that there is no single checklist. The assessing authorities differ sharply and in places contradict one another, so a list copied from a forum will fail somebody.
| Requirement | Engineers Australia | Australian Computer Society | CPA Australia |
|---|---|---|---|
| An English test for the assessment itself, separate from the visa | Required | Not required at all | Required, and at a higher level than Engineers Australia asks |
| Statutory declaration as evidence of employment | Not accepted as assessment evidence | Required where no employer reference can be obtained | Accepted only for a self-written syllabus summary |
| Employment contract or offer letter | Accepted as supplementary evidence of duties | Not assessable | Not the primary evidence; payslips and references carry the weight |
| Payslips | Not accepted as secondary documents | Not listed as required | At least three per role required, ideally from the start, middle and end of it |
| Certified copies | Not wanted. High-resolution colour scans of the originals | Not wanted. Colour scans of originals at 300 dpi or better | Expressly not accepted. High-resolution colour scans of the originals |
The last row is the one that catches people. The Sri Lankan instinct, formed by every local process, is to produce certified copies. All three of these bodies want high-resolution colour scans of the original documents instead, and CPA Australia and the Institute of Public Accountants say expressly that certified copies are not accepted. Producing what you are used to producing is a common reason an assessment stalls.
On employment evidence the standard is duties, not dates. The Australian Computer Society, for example, wants a reference on company letterhead, signed and dated by an authorised person, giving the employer's address and website, the start and end dates in full, whether the work was permanent, part-time or contract, the minimum weekly hours, the annual pre-tax salary, the location and the position title, and then the duties actually performed set out in bullet points. A Sri Lankan service letter confirming that somebody was employed between two dates meets almost none of that. The time to ask a former employer for a letter in that form is while you still work there, or while the person who would sign it is still in post.
Where AW Chambers fits
Not on the Australian side. Giving immigration assistance in Australia is regulated under the Migration Act 1958, and it is reserved to registered migration agents and Australian legal practitioners. This firm is admitted in Sri Lanka and is neither, and section 276 is wide enough that advising somebody which visa to apply for is itself immigration assistance.
Where a Colombo practice does real work is the evidence an assessing authority asks for. Detailed service letters describing duties rather than dates, appointment letters, contracts, provident fund records, tax documents and professional registrations are all Sri Lankan documents obtained through Sri Lankan processes, and they are far easier to get while you are still here. So is reconciling a name that appears differently across a birth certificate, a National Identity Card, a passport, a degree and an employment record. That work is set out in the main guide.
Figures here are dated 20 September 2026. Invitation rounds, occupation lists and assessing authority requirements all change, and a new subclass 189 round was expected by 30 September 2026.
