FIFO Cleaning Jobs
In a video their employer made, two housekeepers at a South Australian mine village describe the job: in and out of rooms all day, running most of the time, twelve hours with an hour's break, and "really, really tough". They also say the hours are long but you're "well looked after", and that the freedom of nobody watching you all day has been "life changing". If that's a trade you'd take, the camp contractors are hiring for it, and the only experience they ask for is the cleaning you've already done somewhere else.
What a FIFO cleaning job is
A FIFO cleaning job is housekeeping or site cleaning at a mine camp, flown in on a roster and usually paid by the camp contractor rather than the mine. Housekeepers clean the rooms; mine site cleaners do the crib huts, bathhouses and offices out on site; industrial cleaners do specialised work for cleaning contractors. Most ads combine the first two with kitchen and bar work and call it utility.
FIFO cleaning and housekeeping jobs: Where to start
- Never cleaned for a livingStart here
- Cleaner or housekeeper alreadyStart here
- Industrial or pressure cleaningStart here
- In Queensland or South AustraliaStart here
- On a working holiday visaStart here
- Applying as a coupleStart here
Find FIFO cleaning jobs
SEEK listed 126 FIFO cleaning jobs for Perth in October 2026. The ads are on SEEK (opens in a new tab), Indeed (opens in a new tab) and Jora (opens in a new tab). The titles vary, so search housekeeper, minesite cleaner, service attendant and utility as well.
Before you apply, check where each ad's flights leave from, called the point of hire. Getting there is usually up to you.
FIFO cleaning and housekeeping jobs at a glance
| Pay | $33 to $63 an hour on the hourly ads; $68,968 to $82,311 a year on salary |
|---|---|
| Rosters | 2:1 (two weeks on, one off) on most camps; 7:7 on some coal sites; ten to twelve-hour days |
| Flies from | Perth for WA; Brisbane, Townsville and Cairns for Queensland; Adelaide for Roxby Downs; drive in from Mackay for the coal camps |
| You'll need | Driver's licence (manual in WA), police clearance, RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol); White Card and food handling on many |
| Experience | Hotel, hospital or commercial cleaning from anywhere, longer for casual work; no mining experience needed |
| Who hires | Camp contractors (Sodexo, Compass Group, Cater Care, Civeo, ISS, Assetlink) and labour hire agencies |
Pay from the job ads of 12 October 2026 across Australia. Listings checked October 2026, from Perth, Brisbane and national searches.
Can you get a FIFO cleaning job with no experience?
Short answer
You can get a FIFO cleaning job with no mining experience, because the camp contractors advertise for first-timers and train on site. The ads do want cleaning, housekeeping or hospitality experience from somewhere, a driver's licence and a police clearance, and the casual pools want two years of it.
The catch is the word "experience" in the ad. Sodexo's service attendant ads say "no FIFO experience required" and then ask for catering, housekeeping, bar or industrial cleaning experience; the casual pools say two years of hospitality. What they're filtering for is someone who has already done a shift on their feet for a boss.
Someone with none of that can watch for the FIFO utility intakes listed through Workforce Australia, the government employment service. One in Perth was taking first-timers a cohort at a time in October 2026.
On a working holiday visa
The camp contractors hire people on 417 and 462 working holiday visas for housekeeping and utility work. The ads still want the same paperwork and experience, and the six-month limit with one employer applies unless the camp is in a region the visa exempts. The foreigners page covers the visa side and whether the work counts toward a second year.
Applying as a couple
Camp contractors take couples, and housekeeping is often the job paired with a partner on the tools or in the kitchen. Say so in the first line of both applications. The same site and the same roster usually come after the first swing rather than before it, and the couples page has the rooms and the rules.
How do you get a FIFO housekeeper or mine site cleaner job, step by step?
Short answer
You get a FIFO cleaning job from the camp contractors, or from the agencies that fill their casual pools, by applying with the licence, police clearance and RSA already done. Apply to several at once; each one runs different camps.
Two kinds of employer run the ads. The contractors put their own full-time service attendants on salary; the agencies fill the casual pools by the hour, which is the quicker door and the one that dries up between contracts.
From no mining experience, in WA
- Get the paperwork first: a driver's licence (a manual one for the WA ads), a recent police check, and an RSA for the bar shifts. Every course asks for your USI (Unique Student Identifier), a free number you make online.
- Lead your resume with your cleaning, housekeeping or kitchen work: that's the experience the ads mean. If you've never cleaned for a living, the Workforce Australia intakes take first-timers.
- Base yourself near Perth Airport, because the WA camp jobs start there and interstate flights aren't paid.
- Apply to both kinds of employer in the same week: the contractors for a salary, the agencies for casual shifts.
- Before you sign, ask the four questions first-timers wish they had asked.
- Once you're offered the job, the employer books the medical and drug test and the site induction.
- On site, expect twelve-hour days on your feet, cleaning rooms in pairs (a typical day).
- Six months in, you have the site experience other entry jobs ask for, and the next jobs open up (where it leads).
Outside WA, or on a working holiday visa
Camps in Queensland, South Australia and the NT fly from their own hubs, and a Queensland coal site may want Standard 11 before you start: the states, hub by hub.
On a working holiday visa, the same steps apply; the visa rules cap you at six months with one employer in most places.
What the ads ask for
Most ads ask for:
- A driver's licence, manual on the WA ads
- A national police clearance, recent
- An RSA, because the utility roles include the wet mess
- Experience in cleaning, housekeeping or a kitchen
After the offer, the employer arranges:
- A pre-employment medical and a drug and alcohol screen, with random tests on site
- The site induction
Nice to have, and what each one gets you:
- A White Card: the ads that send cleaners out onto the mine itself
- A food handling certificate: the kitchen half of a utility job
- A Heavy Rigid licence with a passenger authorisation: the combined utility and bus driver jobs, which pay more
- A forklift ticket: the stores and grounds work some camps add
The tickets page has where to do each one and what it costs.
Industrial cleaning
Industrial cleaning is a different job with the same search term, done for a specialist cleaning contractor rather than a camp operator. Dunbar Services' October 2026 ad, for cleaning kitchen exhausts and air-conditioning systems and treating mould across regional WA and the NT, says "this is not a utility/ general cleaning position" and pays by the hour. The company trains new technicians in Perth first, then sends them out to regional sites during the week.
Where FIFO cleaning jobs fly from: Perth, WA, Queensland (QLD) and the rest of Australia
The WA ads fly from Perth and say so, and the contractors won't pay a leg from interstate. Queensland's camp ads fly from Brisbane, Townsville or Cairns on 14:7 (fourteen days on, seven off). Some of the Bowen Basin coal-site cleaning is drive in drive out for people living around Mackay, and Compass Group's ad for it says "no FIFO".
Compass Group was hiring housekeepers and cleaners for Roxby Downs in South Australia in October 2026, and Sodexo for Darwin. The paperwork is the same in every state, though some Queensland coal-site ads want a coal board medical and the coal industry's Standard 11 induction done first.
Four things to ask before you sign
First-timers online mention four surprises from their first camp contract, so ask about each one before the first swing:
- Is the induction day paid?
- How much notice do you get when a shift changes?
- Is the roster in the contract, or only in the recruiter's email?
- Casual or permanent, and does the hourly rate include the casual loading?
How much do FIFO cleaners get paid?
Short answer
In October 2026, FIFO cleaner and housekeeper ads offered $33 to $63 an hour, or a salary of $68,968 to $82,311 a year. The annual figures are long days on a 2:1 roster, so the hourly rate underneath them is close to a city cleaner's.
| Role | Advertised pay | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest hourly ad | $33 an hour | Jora, Sirrom Corporation, October 2026 |
| Highest hourly ad | $40–$63 per hour | SEEK, Swifty Clean, October 2026 |
| Lowest salaried ad | $68,968+ super | SEEK, Compass Group, October 2026 |
| Highest salaried ad | $82,311 + superannuation | SEEK, Compass Group, October 2026 |
The bottom and top ad of each kind, from 12 job ads of 12 October 2026; the middle hourly figure is $44.50 an hour, and the middle salary is $76,503 a year. Only ads that stated a figure are in the table. Most don't.
To see what any of those comes to after tax, over a swing or a year, put it into the FIFO pay calculator.
The annual ads are the ones to read twice. What's different from a city job is that nothing comes out of the pay on site, because the room, the meals and the flights are covered. The casual pools pay a higher hourly rate with a loading instead of leave, and nothing at all between contracts.
What does a FIFO cleaner do all day?
A typical day for a FIFO housekeeper
The camp is the village of dongas, mess and gym beside the site, and the housekeepers start when the day shift has gone out. Two to a run: high dusting first, behind the television and along the shelves, then strip the bed and bag the linen, one on the bed and one on the bathroom, then every surface, the fridge, the floor. In Compass Group's housekeeping video from Olympic Dam, a housekeeper says a team of two cleans about forty rooms a day.
Then come the common blocks: laundries, the gym, the dry mess after breakfast and again after dinner. On a utility roster the afternoon is the kitchen, and the pot wash is the hottest room on the camp.
The part that isn't in the ad is the running. The rooms are spread out, the sun is on the walkway between them, and the shift is twelve hours with one break. A mine site cleaner's day is the same work out on the mine: crib huts, the lunch rooms out on site, bathhouses, offices and training rooms, driven to in a ute. The dust comes in with the crews.
What is it really like doing FIFO cleaning?
Short answer
FIFO cleaning is twelve hours of rooms, bathrooms and bins in the heat, for a wage near the bottom of the site. The people whose rooms you clean are the people you eat with. The first swing is a hard one.
The rooms and the people in them
Most rooms are fine. Some are not, and the job includes the ones that aren't. A few of the residents look straight through anyone pushing a trolley. The contractors' videos say the opposite, and both are true.
Housekeeping crews are often mostly women, and the women's page has what that's like in a camp that mostly isn't. One camp rule is worth knowing: never take someone's washing out of a machine to run the camp linen, because they will come looking for it.
Those who stay describe the other side. A housekeeper at Olympic Dam says in Compass Group's video that they have made another family on site, and that the time off at home is for relaxing with friends. If a swing turns bad, Lifeline 13 11 14 is open all hours.
Where does a FIFO cleaning job lead?
Short answer
A FIFO cleaning job leads to a leading hand or supervisor role with the same contractor within a year or two. For many it leads to a different job at the same mine: the kitchen, the stores, a trainee truck seat. Six months on a camp is the mine site experience most other entry-level ads ask for.
The move inside the contractor is the easy one: leading hand, then housekeeping supervisor, then relief village manager, each one advertised and each one wanting the one below it. The move across the fence takes a supervisor who'll vouch for you and the ticket the new job asks for, bought on days off. The contractor is not the mine, so moving across means applying like anyone else, with the one thing most applicants don't have: a site induction and six months of turning up.
Is a FIFO cleaning job right for you?
Two honest questions
- Can you clean the fortieth room the way you cleaned the first? The supervisor checks the last ones, because the last ones are where the day shows.
- Can you be invisible to some people and friendly to the rest, for a whole swing? The job is service to people who are tired. Most say thanks. The ones who don't are the test.
Ready to look?
Have the paperwork sorted, and send it to more than one contractor.
- FIFO cleaning jobs on SEEK (opens in a new tab)
- FIFO cleaner jobs on Indeed (opens in a new tab)
- FIFO cleaning jobs on Jora (opens in a new tab)
- All job boards, contractors and agencies in one list
Fake ads turn up on real job boards too. An ad that asks you to pay a fee before you start is a warning sign: report it to Scamwatch (opens in a new tab).
The job is one question. Whether the life suits you is six more. Three minutes. Free.
Is FIFO right for me?