Life Scientist (General) (ANZSCO 234511)

On the Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills 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 Life Scientist (General) on?

MLTSSL — Medium and Long-term Strategic Skills List. The widest list — occupations on the MLTSSL can access the points-tested permanent skilled visas including the Skilled Independent visa (subclass 189), which needs no state nomination or employer.

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).

Skills assessment

A positive skills assessment for Life Scientist (General) comes from:

What the assessment actually involves

Life Scientist (General) is a Group A occupation whose own page names only four explicit exclusions: Biochemist, Biotechnologist, Life Science Technician and Life Scientist nec. Its accepted qualification-field list separately names Botany, Zoology, Marine Biology and Microbiology as acceptable majors — the same subject names carried by four other dedicated occupation codes in this same unit group, none of which appear on this page's own exclusion list, which is a genuine ambiguity worth reading carefully rather than assuming settled.

Where these applications come unstuck

VETASSESS's general nomination guidance states the underlying principle that applies everywhere in its system: employment should not better match another ANZSCO code. That implies work squarely fitting Botanist, Zoologist, Marine Biologist, Microbiologist or Entomologist should be nominated under that specific code rather than here — even though this page's own exclusion list does not name them the way it names Biochemist and Biotechnologist. An applicant whose duties sit ambiguously between general life science and one of those five named specialisms cannot resolve the question from this page alone, and the safer approach is checking the specific occupation's own page before defaulting here.

An honest read on this pathway

This code carries MLTSSL and CSOL, reaching all eight visas in this family. That breadth is genuine, but it is not a reason to nominate it over a better-matched specific sibling: several of those siblings (Botanist, Marine Biologist, Zoologist) carry the identical broad list access, so there is no list-based incentive to prefer the general code once occupational fit is the actual question. The honest read is that "General" describes genuinely unclassifiable life-science work, not a wider net to catch anyone whose title happens to include a specialism.

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 Life Scientist (General) 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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