Innovation and Early Careers Skills Exchange Pilot is a new temporary visa pathway for UK Citizens under the Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement (A-UKFTA) with two streams.
There are two streams under IECSEP which includes:
- The Early Careers stream offers stays in Australia for up to one year for tertiary-qualified applicants aged 21-45, who have already worked for a minimum three months in an organisation. This stream requires that the applicant’s prospective employment in Australia must be relevant to the applicant’s field of work in their current role. Also, the applicants must have prospective employment in Australia in an occupation defined at the ANZSCO1 Skill Levels 1, 2 or 3.
- The Innovation stream offers stay in Australia for up to three years for highly experienced and highly skilled applicants who have a demonstrated contribution to innovation and have prospective employment in Australia in an occupation defined at the ANZSCO Skill Level 1. There is no age limit for applying for the Innovation stream.
IECSEP applications can only be submitted online when an application round is open through the IECSEP online application portal, which is accessed via the DFAT website. IECSEP applications and visa applications are separate processes. IECSEP applicants must submit their letter of support issued by DFAT as part of visa applications to the Department of Home Affairs when applying for a Temporary Work (International Relations) subclass 403 visa Government Agreement stream visa.
It must be noted that applying for IECSEP is free of charge but there are charges for the visa application. A total of 1000 places are available across both streams from 8 June 2023 to 7 June 2024, with a further 2000 places available from 8 June 2024 to 7 June 2025.
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