Work Travel Volunteer

You will need a working holiday visa to work legally in Australia and New Zealand. These are easy to buy. Some organizations even allow you to purchase them electronically over the Internet. Our directory lists organisations that can help with this.

To be able to obtain a visa you must be between 18-32 years old and have sufficient funds in your bank account (usually £2000). Working Holiday Visas allow you to work for a maximum of one year.

Once in the country, you'll also need to set up a bank account and obtain a tax file number for Australia or an IRD number for New Zealand. Then you can start working.

Main industries in Australia include agriculture, mining and tourism. In New Zealand, it is similar, with more emphasis on manufacturing and less on mining. Finance is also a growth area in both countries.

Professions in Australia that are in need include nurses, engineers, manual labourers and accountants. In New Zealand, manual labourers, builders and construction workers and health professionals are also in need.

If you are a skilled worker, please check with your relevant professional body to clarify whether you will need to do any extra training before you can work. For example nurses can work in Australia withought extra training, physiotherapists cannot. Nor can lawyers.

However, you should easily be able to pick up temporary hospitality or administration work if you're only staying for a short period or a more specialised contract role like PR or HR if you stay longer than three months.

The good news with the Australian visa is that you can now work for a company for six months instead of three which opens up many more opportunities. If you work on a farm or orchard for three months, you can also extend your visa to two years.

Finding a job

Depending on what you want to do, finding a job is relatively easy. There are some companies that you can pay a fee to in the UK, who will set you up with accommodation and work before you get over here, or you can go it alone. Our directory lists many of these.

Far by the best website is Seek to look for temporary jobs all over Australia. For New Zealand try Worksite or InternshipNZ

Other options include registering with recruitment agencies and letting them find you a placement or doing your own research and contacting companies of your own choice to see if they have any availabilities. Yellow Pages is a useful tool to search out companies that you may be interested in working for.

Other avenues to find work include hostel noticeboards and advertisements in magazines such as TNT and British Balls.

Many large UK companies also have offices in Australia. These include Accenture, Ernst and Young, IBM, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Unilever.

Once you've finished working, you have the benefit of being able to claim back the tax and superannuation (similar to a pension) you've paid into. Visit Taxback

If you want to work in Australia or New Zealand on a more permanent basis, please visit http://www.immi.gov.au/ or http://www.immigration.govt.nz/ for up to date information on all the red tape!