Huge demand for plumbers and electricians in Australia – here’s how much you could earn

At the beginning of the year, Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) updated its list of jobs which skilled South Africans can apply for when looking to emigrate.

The single list of eligible skilled occupations is provided below to assist you to determine which visa programme may be available to you depending on your occupation.

A number of these jobs also have additional caveats which typically limit where emigrants can move to in Australia and how much they earn.

The list is not limited to lawyers, doctors and engineers, however, and includes trade related jobs: bricklayer, cabinetmaker, carpenter & joiner, plumber, and electrician.

And because these jobs are still in-demand amid a development boom in Australais’s major cities, a new report reveals just how much trade related jobs can earn.

Data from service hiring website ServiceSeeking.com.au, by way of its ‘Tradie Rich List for 2018’, shows that removalists in New South Wales (NSW) saw their hourly wages rise by 76% over the last year to $95.21/hr (R937).

Australia-wide, plumbers and electricians also feature prominently on the list, with an average hourly rate of $83.04 and $75.71 respectively – or R817 and R745 per hour in local currency. Both these jobs, and variants feature on the DIBP’s list. Joiners and plasterers also feature on the list.

Plumbers recorded a strong increase in hourly prices with a yearly rise of 3.1% to $86.59/hr.

Electricians in South Africa, meanwhile, can expect to earn between R82,248 – R370,401 (median: R219,612) a year, according to Payscale.

The skills that increase pay for this job the most are SAP plant maintenance (SAP PM), artisan, switching and routing, programmable logic controllers (PLC) / automation, and plant maintenance.

For a plumber, they can expect to earn between R48,059 – R224,058 (median: R118,917) a year. A Master Plumber can earn up to R413,412, according to Payscale.

Read: Here’s the new list of skills and jobs that will help you move to Australia in 2018