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Hi I've have been thinking about requalifying as a solicitor in Australia in the future and was wondering if anyone on here could give some advice. Currently I am doing my traineeship in the UK to qualify as a Scottish solicitor which will be completed in 2023. I then plan to work for a few years to gain PQE maybe 2-4 years as I understand that this can help you find a job in Aus and can also help to reduce the number of courses etc you need to complete for a positive skills assessment. I was wondering what the best way is to complete the study requirements for the skills assessment. Is it best to move to Aus and complete the study say over the course of a year then apply for jobs when you are out there or is it easy enough to find work before being admitted in Aus then complete the studies whilst working. If you did choose to complete the study in Aus what is the best visa to do this? Also has anyone completed the studies from the UK before moving over? Would it be worth it getting a skills assessment after 2 years PQE in the UK then completing the studies before moving over to find a job. Also what specific documents can you submit to help reduce the number of courses you need to take for the skills assessment. It might be good to start gathering as much as I can at the moment and build on it before submitting anything. Thanks

Hi all, I am new to this site and have just submitted my skils assessment as an Accountant to the ICAA. I became a member of the ICAEW officially on 1 April 2008 (date on my certificate) but my ACA training contract ran Sep 04 - Aug 07 and have worked as a financial accountant since Mar 04. Have just read something about needing 12 months PQE before applying for a 175 - is this right? On the form it just says about having worked in your designated profession for 12 of last 24 months (or something like that) so I assumed I would be good to go now but now I am panicing! Do they only count you has having worked in your designated occupation from the date you became an official member of accounting body? Any advice gratefully received Waikiki

Hi, Just thought I would put this in the forum (as well as our blog) as we think it is really useful information and would like others to benefit from it. Applying for 175 subclass visa and had received conflicting stories/advice about gaining 12 months pqe: Well, Tuesday night, we decided to call the Immigration office in Adelaide, we weren't holding for that long really (Thank goodness!) and OH was connected to a really very helpful guy who put our minds at rest. We asked if OH needed 12 months PQE, post gaining his membership from CIMA. He said that apart from just qualifications it was experience that they were keen to see demonstrated and so if you could show that you had been working in the role of say an accountant (for the time alloted as per the visa guidelines) then this would be taken into consideration even if you weren't an associate member of CIMA at that time. This could also work in reverse, so if you were an associate memeber of CIMA but your actual recent work experience was unrelated to the level of accountancy they are after then this would have an adverse effect. The example he gave was of a qualified chef working in a kitchen simply chopping vegetables - this wouldn't be good enough to apply for a skilled visa as a chef because the actual experience was not relevant.He couldn't give a 100% guarantee that our application would be successful but he definitely put our minds at rest where the 12 months pqe was concerned (i.e. this wasn't necessarily true or at least taken out of context) - experience is essential but it doesn't have to be post qualified ! I recommend phoning the Adelaide Skilled processing centre if you have any questions as they are very friendly and keen to help. It just means waiting up a bit late to make the call and being put on hold for say 20 minutes. But if your phone package offers free international calls (as many do) then what have you got to lose. Hope this helps any of you going through the same thing. Diane & Steve x