Temporary Graduate 485 Assessment (Post-Vocational Education Work Stream) Pathway

Due to the extensive and complex nature of the ACs Migration Skills Assessment, it is not possible to offer pre-assessment advice. A formal assessment needs to be completed before any advice is provided.

ACS is unable to provide career or employment advice to applicants. Qualifications regarding specific education and career outcomes are at the discretion of the student.

Accreditation has no impact on the outcome of your ACS Migration Skills Assessment application or the assessment of a qualification.

Although ACS does provide accreditation for certain ICT Courses, it does not guarantee a suitable migration skills assessment outcome. The qualification is only one aspect of the overall assessment criteria required for a suitable assessment.

ACS can only assess completed qualifications. The completion date of the qualification is an assessment requirement. 

1. Vendor Certifications are NOT accepted under the Temporary Graduate 485 (Post-Vocational Education Work stream) Pathway

2. Applicants under the RPL Assessment Pathway must provide and upload evidence of acceptable completed vendor certificates to demonstrate current knowledge in their chosen occupation and ANZSCO code. Only certain vendor certifications are accepted.

3. When applying under DevOps and Cyber Security, optional evidence of vendor certification may be provided. See Vendor Certifications for details. 

If you have a master's degree, please provide all documentation for the underpinning qualifications, such as a bachelor's degree, including non-ICT qualifications.

The Temporary Graduate 485 Assessment Pathway does not require evidence of work experience.

If you are a skilled IT, Data Science or Cyber Security professional or international student who wishes to migrate to Australia, you will need to have your skills and knowledge assessed through the ACS Migration Skills Assessment BEFORE you can apply for a visa

When lodging your application for the ACS Migration Skills Assessment, you will be required to submit a range of documents, depending on your Assessment Pathway. 

Temporary Graduate 485 - documents required:

• Proof of identity
• Evidence of qualifications

Post Australian Studies - documents required:

• Proof of identity
• Evidence of qualifications
• Evidence of work experience or completed ACS Professional Year

General Skills  - documents required:

• Proof of identity
• Evidence of qualifications 
• Evidence of work experience 

RPL  - documents required:

• Proof of identity
• Evidence of work experience
• Two RPL project reports   
• Professional Currency Evidence

No – it is important that you make sure to provide all the documentation that you want to be considered in the application at the time of submission. Once your application has been submitted and is in process, additional documentation cannot be included.

No, you do not have to be an ACS member to apply for, or submit, an application for the ACS Migration Skills Assessment. When you start your application online, you will be offered a complimentary 12-month ACS membership. ACS members enjoy a wide range of membership benefits including exclusive events, offers, training and career development opportunities.

After submitting your skills application, you will receive email confirmation with an ACS reference number.

The progress of your application can be tracked via your applicant portal using your email address and password.

You can update your address or contact details via your applicant portal.

For applications that do not require any requests for additional documentation or information, please allow between 4 - 6 weeks for the skills assessment to be completed. 

You can change your migration agent or remove them at any point in time via your applicant portal and select to either authorise or de-authorise.

An internal (level 1) appeal is available if you disagree with the outcome result of their Migration Skills Assessment and are seeking an internal review of the assessment by a senior assessor who was not involved in processing the original application. The senior assessor ensures there were no errors made in the assessment or in the administration of the application. You can also, if you wish, provide additional evidence that was not included in your original application that might affect the outcome.

An external (level 2) then becomes available if you disagree with the outcome of your Migration Skills Assessment Appeal. In this case, you can request a review of your application by an external expert or independent assessor to validate the results of the Appeal assessment.

For more information, refer to the ACS MSA Appeals Policy.

You can launch a level 1 appeal of your Migration Skills Assessment outcome within 60 days of receipt of the outcome – i.e. from the date on your skills assessment result letter. After the 60-day period, a new application is required. 

You must initiate the level 1 appeal via the applicant portal and provide additional records and documentation via the portal (if required). 

You may launch an external level 2 Appeal within 30 days of the receipt of the level 1 appeal outcome – i.e. from the date on your level 1 appeal result letter. After the 30-day period, a new application is required. 

The applicant must initiate the level 2 appeal via email to level2appeal@acs.org.au. The applicant is not permitted to provide additional records and documentation to support the level 2 appeal.

Please allow approximately 2-4 weeks for processing.

If the appeal concludes that the application was incorrectly assessed, ACS will fully refund your appeal fees.

If the additional evidence submitted via appeal changes the assessment outcome, ACS reserves the right to not refund your appeal fees.

If the appeal outcome agrees with the original assessment, ACS will not refund your appeal fees.