FIFO Jobs Adelaide
Adelaide has FIFO work, and most of it stays in South Australia: a charter from Adelaide Airport to a mine in the outback, a swing in camp, and the same flight home. The list of ads is short, but it covers most kinds of mine work. If you're in Adelaide and wondering whether you have to move to do FIFO, you don't.
What FIFO from Adelaide is
FIFO from Adelaide is a job on a remote South Australian mine or camp, reached by a charter flight from Adelaide Airport that the employer books. The big sites are BHP's copper mines, each with a camp village beside it. A few Adelaide ads fly workers to other states instead.
FIFO jobs Adelaide: Where to start
- No site experience, in AdelaideStart here
- Hospitality or cleaning experienceStart here
- Have a trade or ticketsStart here
- Live in regional SA, would rather driveStart here
- Want to fly interstate from AdelaideStart here
- Want the pay firstStart here
Find FIFO jobs from Adelaide
Most flights leave from Adelaide Airport. The ads are on SEEK (opens in a new tab), Indeed (opens in a new tab) and Jora (opens in a new tab): search "FIFO Adelaide" and "FIFO SA". Check each ad's location line, because one placed in Adelaide can be a city job and one placed at Roxby Downs is a fly-in one.
FIFO jobs Adelaide at a glance
| Airports | Adelaide Airport, on charters to the mine airstrips; some ads also fly from Port Augusta or Ceduna |
|---|---|
| Hubs | Roxby Downs, next to Olympic Dam; Port Augusta on the road north |
| Drive time | Roxby Downs is about six hours by road from Adelaide, so most Adelaide ads fly |
| Main sites | Olympic Dam, Prominent Hill and Carrapateena (copper); Honeymoon (uranium); Jacinth Ambrosia (mineral sands); the Cooper Basin gas fields around Moomba |
| Who hires from here | Contractors such as Byrnecut; agencies such as Hays and Techforce; camp companies such as Compass, Cater Care, Civeo and Sodexo; and the mine owner BHP |
Listings checked October 2026.
Are there FIFO jobs in Adelaide?
Short answer
There are FIFO jobs from Adelaide, and most of them are in South Australia: camp work, trades, machine operating, drilling and shutdowns. SEEK's FIFO search showed 271 jobs placed in Adelaide on 13 October 2026.
Camp jobs
A camp is the village of rooms, mess and gym beside a mine, and the companies that run them were hiring from Adelaide in October 2026. Compass wanted "SA FIFO Minesite Cleaners, Catering and Housekeepers", Civeo a site administrator and line chefs, and Sodexo chefs on 14:14, fourteen days on and fourteen off. Cater Care had a handyperson on 14:7, fourteen days on and seven off, a bus driver, a chef, and a utility ad headed "NEW SITE OPENING".
Hays, Techforce and IronMerge fill the casual end of the same jobs, and the catch is in the next line of their ads. Techforce wanted "6 months FIFO Utility experience in Australia", and IronMerge wanted FIFO experience from the last six to twelve months.
Some camp ads want you local, which suits an Adelaide address. Compass's cleaning ad said "Reside in SA", and Techforce's utility ad said "Candidate MUST be based in SA".
Trades and shutdowns
A shutdown is the week or two when a processing plant is switched off for repairs, and Olympic Dam was planning one for November 2026. One contractor wanted boilermakers, fitters and trade assistants for it, flying the trades "from any Australian capital city" and the trade assistants from Adelaide only. An agency wanted trade assistants for the same week and said "SA Based encouraged to Apply". Both ads asked for experienced people.
BHP's own ad was for a boilermaker at the Olympic Dam smelter on 7:7, a week on and a week off, for twelve months. Techforce's Olympic Dam boilermaker ad called mine experience "DESIRABLE (NOT ESSENTIAL)", though it wanted trade experience first.
Operators, drillers and the mine crews
Operator ads came mostly from contractors and agencies. One contractor wanted dump truck operators with experience on "CAT 740, 777, 785 Haul Trucks", and Techforce wanted machine operators for Olympic Dam on 2:1, two weeks on and one off. An earthmoving company wanted truck drivers on 2:2, two weeks on and two off.
Byrnecut, which runs underground mines for their owners, was hiring a store person in SA, and Techforce wanted service crew, paste crew and nippers, an underground mine's labouring jobs, for a "Tier 1 Underground Mining Company".
An agency advertised for a driller's offsider, the driller's helper on the rig, with "Entry Level" in the title. The drilling company that wanted no experience hired "Australia wide", so its rig may not be in South Australia. Honeymoon's owner called its wellfield construction job an "Entry level FIFO opportunity", but it wanted experience from mining, heavy industry or farming.
How do you get a FIFO job from Adelaide, and who hires?
Short answer
You get a FIFO job from Adelaide through a contractor, a labour hire agency or a camp company, and later direct with a mine owner such as BHP. Apply to the ads that fly from Adelaide, with your licence and police clearance already in hand.
The first job is the hard one, because so many ads ask for mining experience. One agency's shutdown ad sold itself as a chance to "gain valuable mining and shutdown experience". Watch for an ad that isn't mine work at all: the "Entry Level FIFO Sales Representative" job, with an hourly rate plus commission, is with a travelling sales team.
Step by step, from Adelaide
- Get your licence, manual if you can, and a police clearance not long before you apply (what the ads ask for).
- Do your White Card and other tickets in Adelaide (where, and what they cost). Every course asks for your USI (Unique Student Identifier), a free number you make online.
- With no experience, start with the drilling ads that take beginners, or the camp companies if you've worked in a kitchen or cleaning (the ways in).
- Skip the "FIFO" sales ads, and never pay anyone to put you forward for a job (the fee rule).
- Favour the jobs flying out of Adelaide or any capital over those starting in another state's capital (flying interstate).
- If you live in the regions, look for the ads that pick up at Port Augusta, or at Ceduna for the west coast (driving instead).
- Once you're offered the job, your employer arranges the medical and drug test, then the induction and your seat on the charter.
- On your first swing, expect a pre-dawn check-in, a short flight north and long days in camp (a typical swing).
What the ads ask for
Most ads ask for:
- A driver's licence, and a manual one on several ads; Techforce wanted an SA licence
- A national police clearance, often one dated within the last six months
- A White Card, the construction safety card, for the shutdown, construction and maintenance jobs
- An RSA, the certificate for serving alcohol, and a food safety certificate for the camp jobs, which Techforce and Hays both listed
After the offer, the employer arranges:
- A pre-employment medical and a drug and alcohol screen; one agency's ad said candidates "are required to pass" both
- The site induction, and the flights from Adelaide
Nice to have, and what each one gets you:
- Working at heights and confined space tickets: the shutdown jobs, which listed both
- A forklift licence: the handyperson and store person jobs, which asked for one
- An excavator or backhoe ticket: a field assistant job supporting a drilling program, which required one
- A medium rigid (MR) truck licence: the camp bus driver job
The tickets page says which tickets are worth getting next, where to do them in Adelaide, and which you should never pay for.
Flying interstate from Adelaide
Some Adelaide ads go beyond South Australia: one contractor's administrator job was "Remote FIFO to SA & NT projects". An interstate ad that takes hires from any capital city, as Monadelphous's boilermaker ad did in October 2026, flies you from Adelaide too.
When an ad names Adelaide as the point of hire, the airport the employer flies you from, the flight is theirs to pay. An ad that names Perth or Brisbane works the other way: getting there is your cost and your time, so read that line before you apply.
Olympic Dam, Roxby Downs and driving instead
Olympic Dam has a town built beside it, Roxby Downs, so its jobs come in three shapes. BHP's smelter ad offered "Residential, DIDO, FIFO" in one title: live in the town, drive in from the region (DIDO, drive-in drive-out), or fly from Adelaide.
From an Adelaide address the flight is the usual answer, since the drive takes most of a day at each end of a swing. One Techforce ad for Olympic Dam was drive-in drive-out from Adelaide all the same, with a fuel allowance. From a regional town, look for a pickup closer to home: BHP's Carrapateena ad flew from "Adelaide or Port Augusta", and a contractor flew its Jacinth Ambrosia boilermakers "ex Adelaide or Ceduna".
How much do FIFO jobs from Adelaide pay?
Short answer
FIFO jobs advertised out of Adelaide in October 2026 paid $37 to $72.68 an hour, from camp utility work to a boilermaker. The salaried camp jobs, for a chef and an administrator, paid $86,000 to $101,500 a year plus super.
| Role | Advertised pay | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Camp utility, casual | $37 - $40 an hour | Jora, Techforce Personnel, Oct 2026 |
| Shutdown trade assistant, Olympic Dam | $45 per hour | SEEK, Red Appointments, Oct 2026 |
| Shutdown rigger | $52 per hour | SEEK, Red Appointments, Oct 2026 |
| Welders, boilermakers and fitters, fly-in or drive-in | $64 – $71 per hour | SEEK, Typhoon Project Services, Oct 2026 |
| Boilermaker, Jacinth Ambrosia | $72.68p/h All Inclusive Rate | SEEK, Lucas Total Contract Solutions, Oct 2026 |
| Chef, 14:14 | $86,000 – $96,000 per year | SEEK, Sodexo, Oct 2026 |
| Site administrator, 14:7 | $101,500 + 12% superannuation | SEEK, Civeo, Oct 2026 |
Only ads that stated a figure are in the table. Most don't.
To see what any of those comes to over a swing or a year after tax, put it into the FIFO pay calculator; the salary page has every job side by side.
The permanent camp jobs paid by the year, and the casual utility work, the trades and the shutdown crews paid by the hour, with super on top and no paid leave for the casuals. The boilermaker's rate was "All Inclusive", one flat figure, so ask what it covers before you compare it with a rate that has night and overtime loadings on top. Many Adelaide ads gave no figure and said "Competitive" instead.
What is FIFO from Adelaide like day to day?
A typical swing from Adelaide
The swing starts at the charter gate before dawn, with a bag that fits the weight limit and a bus waiting at the other end. The flight is an hour or two, and the camp sits on the edge of the mine, with Roxby Downs a short drive from Olympic Dam and nothing at all near the others. The day is eleven or twelve hours, days or nights. The camp runs on it: the kitchen crew is up before the mine crews, the cleaners work the rooms while the shift is out, and the bus driver meets every change.
The camps sell themselves in the ads. BHP's Tjungu Village at Carrapateena listed a pub, mini golf and a golf simulator, and Emeco's Prominent Hill ad promised trivia and comedy nights.
The part that isn't in the ad is the sameness: a swing of the same faces, the same mess and the same walk, and days off that only start when the charter lands back in Adelaide.
What is it really like doing FIFO from Adelaide?
Short answer
FIFO from Adelaide is a short flight, a swing in an outback camp, and the trip home. The hard parts are the short list of ads and the agencies' habit of asking for the experience you're trying to get.
The ads tell most of it. When the list is short, the job you want may not be advertised the month you look, so save the searches and check them every week. The shutdown jobs are the opposite problem: a week of work, then a wait for the next shut, unless an agency has a run of them lined up.
What the ads don't say is that a short flight can make the swing feel longer. A worker from Adelaide is one flight from the family the whole swing, close enough to picture the week they're missing. If a swing turns bad, Lifeline is 13 11 14, any hour.
Where does FIFO from Adelaide lead?
Short answer
FIFO from Adelaide leads to a permanent job with a contractor or a mine owner, once your swings count as mining experience. The other door is residential: BHP's Olympic Dam ads can offer the same job to people living in Roxby Downs.
Some of Techforce's trade ads were headed "TEMP TO PERM", a temporary start with a permanent job in view, and a shutdown crew puts your work in front of a supervisor for a week or two. After that, the ads that want "proven experience within the mining industry" start to fit.
The residential door is the other one. Life in Roxby Downs means going home after every shift instead of flying out for a swing, but it's a move to a mining town in the outback. It suits a family that would rather be together than be in Adelaide.
Is FIFO from Adelaide right for you?
Two honest questions
- Camp or crew? Camp work paid the least of the Adelaide ads, but its permanent jobs run on the same roster all year. The trade and shutdown crews paid more by the hour, and shutdown work comes and goes. Decide which year you want before you apply.
- Would you move to the mining town? Nobody has to, but some Olympic Dam jobs offer it, and a family will want a say. Know your answer before an offer asks you.
Ready to look?
If you've read this far and still want in, have the paperwork in one file, then search the Adelaide boards and check where each ad really flies from.
- FIFO jobs in Adelaide on SEEK (opens in a new tab)
- FIFO jobs in Adelaide on Indeed (opens in a new tab)
- FIFO jobs in Adelaide 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?