Secretary (General) (ANZSCO 521211)
On the Regional 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 Secretary (General) 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.
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).
- Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional visa (subclass 494) — Provisional, regional employer sponsored · all occupations for the 494
Skills assessment
A positive skills assessment for Secretary (General) comes from:
- Vocational Education and Training Assessment Services (VETASSESS) (official site) · our guide to the VETASSESS process
What the assessment actually involves
Secretary (General) sits in VETASSESS Group C, requiring a qualification comparable to an AQF Diploma or higher, assessed on the family's standard four-pathway basis. Its highly relevant fields of study are business administration, management and office management — one field wider than Personal Assistant's list. ANZSCO places it in unit group 5212 Secretaries alongside Legal Secretary, and separately excludes medical secretaries from the unit group entirely: “Medical secretaries are excluded from this unit group. Medical secretaries are included in unit group 5421 Receptionists, in occupation 542114 Medical Receptionist.”
Where these applications come unstuck
VETASSESS names Personal Assistant, Legal Secretary, Office Manager, Receptionist and Medical Secretary as occupations it will not consider under this code. The medical-secretary exclusion is the one most likely to catch a reader out: someone working as a secretary in a hospital or clinical setting is, by ANZSCO's own classification rule, not assessed under Secretary (General) at all — that title is routed to the Receptionists unit group under Medical Receptionist instead, a different occupation with its own separate requirements.
An honest read on this pathway
Secretary (General) reaches only subclass 494 through Regional Occupation List membership, the same ceiling as Personal Assistant and most of the family's other clerical codes. The Diploma-level requirement and the office-management field of study mean the pathway suits a genuinely senior secretarial role rather than junior clerical support, but it opens no employer-sponsored or points-tested route regardless of seniority. A medical secretary reading this code as an obvious match should check the Medical Receptionist occupation instead before assuming Secretary (General) applies.
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 Secretary (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.
Compare registered agents — free
Related occupations
All skilled occupations · Points calculator · Skilled visa agents