Botanist (ANZSCO 234515)

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 Botanist 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).

Processing priority

Botanist 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 Botanist comes from:

What the assessment actually involves

Botanist is a Group A occupation whose own page lists Plant Pathologist among the occupations considered suitable under this code — alongside Plant Physiologist and Plant Taxonomist per the dossier's review of the page — meaning those specialist plant-science titles route here rather than needing separate codes of their own. No explicit exclusion list was found on Botanist's own page in this review, which is a different shape from most of this family's other occupation pages.

Where these applications come unstuck

The absence of a stated exclusion list on Botanist's own page does not mean the boundary with Life Scientist (General) is settled — VETASSESS's general nomination principle is that employment should not better match another ANZSCO code, and botany-specific work is one of the subject names Life Scientist (General) accepts as a qualification field without listing Botanist as an exclusion. An applicant whose work is squarely plant science should nominate this specific code rather than the general one, on the strength of that general principle, even though neither page states the rule explicitly for this pair.

An honest read on this pathway

Botanist carries MLTSSL and CSOL, reaching all eight visas in this family — the same strong list position as Life Scientist (General), Zoologist, Marine Biologist and most of the life-sciences cluster. There is no list-access reason to prefer the general code over this specific one when the work is genuinely botanical, and nominating the specific, correctly-matched code is the more defensible choice given the general better-match principle that runs through VETASSESS's whole system.

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 Botanist 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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