Choosing your first Australian employer: what OTs, speech pathologists and physios moving from overseas should check

Written by Callum Trevorrow. Last checked 28 October 2026 against official sources.

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A good first Australian employer can give you the supervision or orientation your registration route requires, offers the same terms as an Australian worker in the same role, and can show you how it has settled overseas clinicians before. For OTs with a “relevant” qualification outcome that supervision is formal: limited registration and 6 months of supervised practice, and the OT Board says you must find that job and supervisor yourself.

Several of my own team trained overseas. I’ve done this move with them, not just for them. This page covers what to ask a first employer while you’re still overseas, profession by profession, before you commit.

Start with what your route needs from an employer

Depending on your profession and route, your first employer may also be where you complete supervised practice or an orientation, or where your start date depends on an assessment. Check this before you compare pay.

Occupational therapists

• Comparable Regulator or Recognised International Qualification pathway (for example, UK qualifications approved by the HCPC and Irish qualifications approved by CORU, within the years the Board lists): you apply for general registration. The OT Board lists an orientation for the portfolio route’s “substantially equivalent” outcome, but its pages don’t state whether it applies to these pathways, so check with the Board. See is my OT degree recognised?
• Portfolio route, “substantially equivalent” outcome: general registration, with a required one-on-one orientation to the Australian healthcare system from an OT who has held unrestricted general registration for at least 3 consecutive years, and approved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural safety training, which you can complete before registration (if you don’t, the Board may put conditions on it).
• Portfolio route, “relevant” outcome: limited registration and 6 months of supervised practice with a competence assessment by the Occupational Therapy Council, in a position that requires OT registration, with a supervisor “prepared to supervise you and assess your competence”. How that supervision works is in good clinical supervision and Ahpra registration for overseas OTs.
• Ask the employer: who exactly would orient or supervise you, whether they’ve done it before, and whether that time is built into their week and yours.

Physiotherapists

• All three Australian Physiotherapy Council routes (Express FLYR, FLYR and APEP) lead to general registration, without supervised practice. Limited registration is for supervised training or postgraduate study. See Express FLYR, FLYR and APEP.
• Ask the employer: whether the start date allows for your route’s timing, who you’ll go to with clinical questions in your first months, and how they’ll introduce you to Australian systems such as Medicare, private health insurance and workers’ compensation if the role involves them.

Speech pathologists

• No formal arrival supervision requirement: Speech Pathology Australia’s skills assessment page sets none. What it does say is that you must be eligible for Certified Practising membership, and that travelling to Australia to work before you complete a skills assessment is strongly discouraged.
• Support is the employer’s choice, which makes it worth asking about directly: who you’ll discuss cases with, whether there’s another speech pathologist on the team, and how you’ll learn local funding and reporting systems.
• Ask the employer: whether the start date allows for your SPA outcome. See Certified Practising, not Ahpra and the SPA mutual recognition route.

Sponsorship and recruiter fees, briefly

• Sponsorship. A 482 sponsor must give you equivalent terms to an Australian worker and pay at least the income threshold and the market salary rate; the rules, and the costs a sponsor can’t pass on, are in visa sponsorship jobs. Whether you’re eligible for a visa is a question for a registered migration agent, and Home Affairs has the official 482 visa page. We work alongside registered migration agents, so your visa advice comes from someone licensed to give it.
• What Queensland agents can’t charge. Under Queensland’s code, an agent can’t take a fee from a work seeker living or intending to live temporarily in Australia for finding work here, and can’t charge any work seeker for add-on services such as resume or interview help as a condition of finding work (recruiter fees and the Queensland code). We don’t charge clinicians.

Questions to put to a sponsoring employer:

1. “Are you already an approved sponsor, and have you sponsored a clinician in my profession before?”
2. “Which costs will you cover, and which will I pay: my visa application, flights, relocation, temporary accommodation?” Get the answer in writing.
3. “Is the salary in the contract the same as an Australian clinician at my level here would get, and at least the 482 income threshold?” The current figure is on visa sponsorship jobs.

My guidance if you need employer sponsorship: look 30 minutes or more out of the city centre. Sponsoring employers cluster in growth suburbs and regional centres where demand is highest; in South East Queensland that’s Ipswich, Springfield, Logan, Moreton Bay and the Gold Coast hinterland. If you’re considering a rural role, check the supervision before you sign. See regional Queensland and registration, job or visa first.

Settling-in support to ask about from overseas

You probably can’t visit before you sign, so ask for specifics:

• The start date. Is it set around your registration or SPA outcome, or will you be asked to start before it?
• Provider numbers. If the role bills Medicare, you need general or limited registration (OTs and physios) or Certified Practising membership (speech pathologists) before you can get a provider number. Ask who helps with the application and what you’ll do in the meantime.
• The first two weeks. What does orientation look like, and when do you start seeing clients on your own?
• Somewhere to live. Will someone help with temporary accommodation and finding a rental, or point you to who can? Is any of it paid for, and is that in the contract?
• The first pay. When is the first pay day after you start, and how is pay handled if registration or provider numbers come through after your start date?
• A named contact. Who checks in with you in the first month, apart from your manager?
• Workload ramp-up. Will your caseload start lower while you learn local systems, and for how long?

Checking the culture from overseas

• Ask about the last overseas hire. “Who was the last clinician you hired from overseas? Are they still here? What would they say helped and what didn’t?”
• Talk to a current clinician in your profession by video call, without the manager on the call.
• Ask for key answers in writing during recruitment.

The questions on managers, supervision, caseload and non-client time are in what to look for in your next role, including a scorecard you can use in interviews.

Red flags

1. You’re asked to pay for your own sponsorship or nomination, or to pay anything in exchange for being sponsored.
2. No one can name your supervisor or orientation provider, when your OT route needs one.
3. The salary is below what an Australian clinician in the same role would get, or the employer won’t say.
4. A recruiter asks you for a fee or sells you paid extras as a condition of finding work.
5. Pressure to start work before your registration or SPA assessment is complete.
6. You can’t speak to any current clinician, or the employer has no answer about previous overseas hires.
7. Costs you’ll carry (flights, relocation, accommodation) are verbal only, not in the contract.

Your next step

• OTs: check which pathway applies to you (comparable regulator, recognised qualification or portfolio) and, on the portfolio route, which outcome. If it’s “relevant”, your first employer must provide a supervisor willing to assess your competence over 6 months.
• Speech pathologists: check your SPA assessment route and timing before you agree a start date.
• Physios: check whether Express FLYR, FLYR or APEP applies, because that decides when you can register and start.

The pathway check below asks those questions in a few minutes and shows your route, so you know what to ask an employer before you commit. We’d rather help you make the right move than a fast one.