Pig Farmer (ANZSCO 121318)

On the Regional Occupation List and Core Skills Occupation List

From the official Home Affairs skilled occupation lists, as at 2026-08-12. Lists change at each government update — always confirm on the official page before acting.

Which lists is Pig Farmer on?

ROL — Regional Occupation List. Occupations on the ROL are limited to the regional provisional visas — mainly the Skilled Work Regional 491 and Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional 494.

CSOL — Core Skills Occupation List. The employer-sponsorship list — occupations on the CSOL can be nominated for the Skills in Demand visa (subclass 482) and the Employer Nomination Scheme 186.

Visas this occupation can access

Being on a list makes the occupation nominatable for these visas — each visa still has its own requirements (points, age, English, a positive skills assessment, and for sponsored visas a willing employer or state).

Processing priority

Pig Farmer isn't in any of the ANZSCO groups that Directions 121 and 122 list for the priority sectors. Some of the first group is defined by the job rather than the code: a nominated position directly involved in agriculture, aquaculture or fishing, one that directly supports mining, oil and gas or coal production, or one related to defence. Otherwise the application is processed after the priority sectors. For the permanent and provisional skilled visas, applicants who were in Australia when they applied come next, then those who applied from outside Australia. For the 482, Specialist Skills stream applications come before both.

Priority changes the order in which lodged applications are looked at, not whether they are granted. Who is invited to apply through SkillSelect is decided separately. See all 202 occupations in the priority sectors.

Skills assessment

A positive skills assessment for Pig Farmer comes from:

What the assessment actually involves

VETASSESS Group B, requiring a qualification comparable to an Australian Bachelor degree or higher or the substantial-experience alternative. The Pig Farmer occupation page is unusually direct about the boundary of the code, which makes it a useful reference point for the whole family — it says plainly that someone whose job was feeding livestock or animals is not this occupation.

Where these applications come unstuck

That published exclusion is the trap in one line. Piggery work is labour-intensive and highly skilled in its own right, and none of that skill is what this code assesses. Feeding, husbandry and shed work on someone else's operation is the Farm Worker group. What VETASSESS wants is the enterprise: breeding programme decisions, budgets, staff, and the business relationships downstream.

An honest read on this pathway

Pig Farmer carries CSOL alongside ROL, so the sponsored visa routes are structurally available. There is also a Pork industry labour agreement lane, though as elsewhere in this family it sponsors a differently defined role rather than this ANZSCO code. Two separate doors, easy to conflate, and the labour-agreement one runs through an employer who already holds an agreement. Because both doors sound like they lead to the same place, applicants sometimes pursue the labour-agreement route expecting it to produce this ANZSCO code. It does not, and the roles it sponsors are defined separately by Home Affairs.

VETASSESS assesses qualifications and employment separately. Both need documentation that agrees with itself. The Employment History Builder and Document Vault organise each trail before you lodge.

Talk it through with a registered agent

Whether nominating Pig Farmer is your best route depends on your points, experience evidence and timing — exactly what a MARA-registered agent works through in an initial consultation. Describe your situation once through Migratio and compare real consultation quotes from registered agents, free.

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All skilled occupations · Points calculator · Skilled visa agents