# Quantity Surveyor - Employer Sponsorship / State Sponsorship



## sgal67 (Mar 9, 2012)

Hi There,

New to the Forum, I was wondering if anyone can help me, or has experience in Employer Sponsorship. I am a Quantity Surveyor from Scotland with over 6 years experience & would like to move to Brisbane or Sunshine Coast with my wife & 3 year old daughter & was wondering what the best way to go was. Should I get SS visa first then go over & try to gain employment or are there plenty of employers in this region offering sponsorship?

If anyone who has got sponsored by an employer or anyone has gainied there Visa & moved out & got a job could offer advice it would be greatly appreciated. I would just like to know what the best option may be, i.e if there is suffcient work out there for a construction/civil engineering Quantity Surveyor to gain employent once out there & what the time frames are for each option.


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## Maz25 (Jul 6, 2008)

Hi there

Most of the major UK consultancies who have a branch/office in Australia offer sponsorship for the right candidate. I actually moved out on employer sponsorship, though based on my experience, I would not necessarily encourage anyone to go down that route if they qualify for their own visa.

A lot of employers also post jobs on Linked In or Seek.com.au and that would be a good place to start. Quantity Surveyor is not a commonly used term here, so you should also search for jobs as an Estimator, Contract Administrator, Cost Planner or Cost Manager.

To be honest, the construction industry is not really that strong right now. There is work about and quantity surveyors are always in demand since Australia does not really produce enough of their own but the majority of work tends to be on heavy civils projects as well as in mining and oil and gas. If you are prepared to work FIFO, that would also increase the number of jobs open to you and would also increase your pay packet by 20-35% depending on the employer.

One of the things to note with working for consultants is that the hours are long. Yes, your contract will probably state 37.5 hours a week but it'll be closer to 60 hours. I refused to give up my social life and have now gone back to working for the client.

I'm not sure if Queensland is sponsoring QSs - you'll have to check their website but for sure, WA, ACT, NT are sponsoring. Out of these, you will have most success finding a job in WA simply because of the mining boom.

I'm not sure what your background is but aside from the PQS practices, contractors are also always on the look out for good QSs.


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## sgal67 (Mar 9, 2012)

Thank you for the reply Maz25, I have mainly always worked for as a contractor QS on large civils, Rail & water projects so I would ideally like to continue working for a contractor. Thanks for the tip on job sites, I will have a search on them with Australian terms for QS that you have given me, I would consider FIFO but not straight away as I don't want to leave the wife & daughter all alone. I will aslo check if Queenland are sponsoring QS's. Again thanks for the advice.


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## Maz25 (Jul 6, 2008)

It seems that most people opt to work for contractors here and considering your background, you will have an easier task than most in terms of finding a job.

YOu should check out the following companies - they sometimes sponsor:
- Leighton Contractors
- AbiGroup
- Georgiou
- Broad Construction
- Thiess
- John Holland
- Laing O'Rourke

If you are also interested in mining and oil and gas, you can also consider the following companies:
- Chevron
- BHP Billiton
- Rio Tinto
- Newmont

There may be others, but those are the major ones that I came across when I was looking for sponsorship.


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## sgal67 (Mar 9, 2012)

Maz25 said:


> It seems that most people opt to work for contractors here and considering your background, you will have an easier task than most in terms of finding a job.
> 
> YOu should check out the following companies - they sometimes sponsor:
> - Leighton Contractors
> ...


Maz25 thanks again for your help it is greatly appreciated, I will look up the companies you have mentioned & maybe make contact with them & enquire about the possibility of sponsorship. 

How long did it take you to get to OZ once you had found an employer willing to sponsor you?


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## Maz25 (Jul 6, 2008)

I moved about 5-6 weeks of being offered sponsorship/ receiving the job offer. My visa came through on a Friday (took about a month from date of lodgement) and I arrived in Perth a week later.

You can mutually agree a start date with your employer - depending on the demands of the project, some employers expect you to move as soon as possible, whilst others are happy to wait a few months.


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