Diving Instructor (Open Water) (ANZSCO 452311)

On the Short-term Skilled 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 Diving Instructor (Open Water) on?

STSOL — Short-term Skilled Occupation List. Occupations on the STSOL can access state-nominated and regional skilled visas (190/491), but not the Skilled Independent 189.

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 Diving Instructor (Open Water) comes from:

What the assessment actually involves

VETASSESS assesses Diving Instructor (Open Water) as a Group D occupation — AQF Certificate III or higher plus highly relevant employment — with a suitable-occupation list naming Dive Master, Scuba Instructor, Snorkelling Instructor and SSBA Instructor. The page states directly that the industry credential most working dive instructors actually hold does not meet the migration requirement: professional certificates such as PADI "may be regarded as supporting evidence" but "cannot… be assessed towards meeting the formal qualification requirements of this occupation as they are not generally comparable to the Australian Qualifications Framework."

Where these applications come unstuck

The PADI gap is the defining trap for this code — a fully certified, working PADI instructor can still fail the qualification limb of the assessment because the certification body itself is not an AQF-comparable qualification issuer, regardless of hours logged or students trained. This occupation also appears twice in VETASSESS's DAMA occupation checker under two different names — Diving Instructor (Open Water) itself, and a separate bespoke DAMA-only title, Diving Instructor (Tourism or Photography), with no equivalent skilled-list code of its own. Assuming a DAMA sponsorship runs through this occupation's own code rather than that bespoke title is not confirmed either way here.

An honest read on this pathway

The visa pathway is genuinely open and unusually broad for this family — STSOL and CSOL together give it 186, 190, 407, 482, 491 and 494, missing only the independent 189. What limits real applicants is more likely the qualification gap than the visa list: an instructor whose only credential is PADI needs a genuinely AQF-comparable qualification alongside it, which the industry certification alone does not provide.

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 Diving Instructor (Open Water) 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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