How do I get a FIFO mining job?

You get a FIFO mining job by applying for the job your background already fits, or for a beginner's job such as driller's offsider. Apply to employers directly as well as through the boards.

FIFO Mining Jobs

A mixed crew at a prestart outside a site office at dawn: an electrician with a tool bag, a supervisor with a clipboard, an operator with a coffee, a nurse and an administrator, with a headframe and a haul truck behind

A mine is a town that runs all day and all night, and FIFO mining jobs cover every job that town needs. Someone cooks and cleans, someone drives the trucks and someone fixes them, the trades keep the plant running, and there is a nurse and an office. The money is real and the ads are plain about it, and the price is the same for all of them: the swing away from home. Which door is yours depends on what you already have, a trade, time on a machine, a year in a kitchen or nothing yet, so pick the door before you read the ads.

What FIFO mining jobs are

FIFO mining jobs are mine jobs that fly you in from a city for a swing and home for your days off, with the flights, camp and meals paid. They run from kitchen hand to electrician to mining engineer.

FIFO mining jobs: Where to start

No experience, no tradeStart here
Have a tradeStart here
Can drive a truck or a loaderStart here

Hospitality or cleaning backgroundStart here
Not in PerthStart here
What it really paysStart here

Find FIFO mining jobs

Search FIFO mining on SEEK (opens in a new tab), on Indeed (opens in a new tab) and on Jora (opens in a new tab), then add the job you want, such as "FIFO utility", "FIFO dump truck" or "FIFO electrician". Each job's page has its own search.

Before you apply, check where each ad's flights leave from, called the point of hire. Getting there is usually up to you.

FIFO mining jobs at a glance

Pay	$33 to $130.12 an hour, apprentices aside, in October 2026 ads; camp utility lowest, trades and nurses highest
Rosters	2:1 named most often, then 8:6; even time on a few; shutdowns by date
Flies from	Perth for half the ads; Brisbane and the Queensland coal towns next; the other capitals for a few
You'll need	A manual licence, a police clearance and the right to work; a medical and drug screen after the offer
Experience	No mining experience on many offsider, camp and trainee ads; a year on the machine for operators; the certificate for trades
Who hires	Camp companies (Compass, Sodexo), contractors (Monadelphous, Mader), labour hire (WorkPac, Programmed, Fetch) and mine owners (BHP, Fortescue, Northern Star)

Pay and listings checked October 2026, from the pay snapshot and the three boards.

What fly in fly out mining jobs are there?

Short answer

Fly in fly out mining jobs fall into six kinds: camp jobs, entry jobs on site, machine and support jobs, the trades, medical jobs and professionals such as engineers. That means utilities and chefs, driller's offsiders, truck and machine operators, electricians and fitters, nurses, and mining engineers.

Camp jobs: camp utility, cleaner or housekeeper, cook or chef and bus driver
Starting out: driller's offsider, trade assistant, trainee operator and apprentice
Machines and support: truck, plant or bus operator, rigger or scaffolder, tyre fitter, storeperson, site administrator and security officer
Trades: electrician, mechanical fitter, diesel mechanic, boilermaker or welder, plumber and carpenter
Medical: mine site nurse, paramedic or remote area nurse
Professionals: engineers, geologists and surveyors

Can you get an entry level FIFO mining job with no experience?

Short answer

An entry level FIFO mining job with no mining experience is real: in October 2026, driller's offsider, camp, cleaning and trainee operator ads took beginners. The catch is that most want something else first, such as hospitality time for the camp or a manual licence for the rigs.

Read the whole ad. Sodexo's October 2026 ads said "No FIFO experience required!" and still asked for catering, housekeeping, bar or industrial cleaning experience, and several beginner ads flew people from Perth only. The no-experience page has each beginner's door in detail.

Fly in fly out mining jobs with a trade

A trade gets some of the top rates on a mine site: the trades' middle hourly ads in October 2026 ran from $60.50 for carpenters to $83.25 for electricians. Much of the work is casual shutdown work through contractors and labour hire, when part of a plant stops for repairs.

FIFO mining jobs on the machines: a year first

Many operator ads want twelve months on the machine first. In September a recruiter's ad for "30x Dump Truck Operators" asked for "Minimum 12 months experience on specified machinery", and the same title was still advertised in October. The way to that year is a trainee seat: WorkPac and Programmed advertised dump truck traineeships, paid jobs with the training built in, in Queensland and New South Wales in October 2026.

How do you get a FIFO mining job, step by step?

Short answer

A FIFO mining job comes from picking the door your background opens, getting the tickets that door asks for, and applying from the city its ads fly from. The usual first jobs are in the camp, beside a driller or in a trainee's seat.

From no mining experience, in WA

Choose your way in: the camp, an offsider's or trainee's seat, a machine, or your trade (the kinds of job).
Get a manual driver's licence, a White Card and a police clearance, which most first jobs ask for (what the ads ask for). Every course asks for your USI (Unique Student Identifier), a free number you make online.
Add the tickets your door asks for, such as a heavy rigid licence for the offsider ads (which tickets).
Live in Perth if you can: half the ads fly from there, and some beginner ads from nowhere else (where they fly from).
Check what each ad really asks for: a camp ad that says no FIFO experience can still want hospitality or cleaning time (the catch).
Send applications to several employers in the same week, straight to the labour hire firms, contractors and camp companies, not only through the job boards (who hires).
Never pay an agency or anyone else to put you forward for a job (the fee rule).
Once you're offered the job, the employer books the medical and drug test, the inductions, the flights and your camp room.

In Queensland

In Queensland, the coal mines fly people out of Brisbane and hire others in the coal towns (the Queensland hubs). A coal mine also wants Standard 11, the coal mine induction, and a coal board medical, which the employer pays for.

How do FIFO mining jobs work, and who hires?

Short answer

FIFO mining jobs in Australia are with mine owners, mining and maintenance contractors, camp companies and labour hire agencies. Half fly from Perth: 125 of the pay snapshot's 249 October 2026 ads were placed there, and 52 in Queensland.

Mine owners such as BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue run some of their own crews. They contract out much of the rest: the camp to Compass or Sodexo, the digging and hauling to mining contractors, and the maintenance and shutdowns to firms such as Monadelphous and Mader. The how mining works page has who hires whom.

What the ads ask for

Most ads ask for:

A driver's licence, often manual; a Perth camp pool wanted a "WA C Class Driver's Licence"
A national police clearance and Australian working rights
A trade's certificate, machine time for an operator, hospitality or cleaning work for the camp jobs

After the offer, the employer arranges:

A pre-employment medical and a drug and alcohol screen
Site inductions, flights and a room in camp

Nice to have, and what each one gets you:

A White Card: the construction induction many site ads ask for, a one-day course
Working at heights, confined space and an HR (heavy rigid) truck licence: the tickets the trade assistant and offsider ads ask for
An address near the airport: several beginner ads said "FIFO from Perth only"

Where FIFO mining jobs fly from

Queensland's coal mines take crews from Brisbane, and from Moranbah, Mackay and Blackwater, where some jobs are drive in rather than fly in. Adelaide, Darwin and Sydney had a few ads each in October 2026, and some ads reach further: Monadelphous offered "Point of hire from any Australian capital city". The pages for Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin, Sydney and Melbourne have what flying from each involves.

How much does FIFO mining pay?

Short answer

FIFO mining jobs advertised $33 to $130.12 an hour in the October 2026 pay snapshot, leaving out apprentices. The middle ads ran from $39.75 an hour for camp utility to $110 for remote area nurses.

The yearly figures in the ads are the hourly rate times a 2:1 year of 2,920 hours, with loadings on top, which is how an agency's October offsider ad reached "130k++". A casual rate reads higher than a salary for the same job because the casual loading is in it and the leave is not. The pay calculator works out the swing and the year after tax, and the salary page has every job side by side.

What is a FIFO mining job really like?

Short answer

FIFO mining work is twelve-hour shifts every day of the swing, often days then nights, with the camp as home in between. The work is long but known; the time away from home is the real cost.

A processing plant under floodlights at night, two cranes lifting components, workers in hi-vis on the walkways, buses and utes in the car park and a lit site office in front — The night shift: the plant does not stop, so neither does the roster.

Camp rooms are usually your own, with a bathroom, and the mess cooks three meals a day. The part the ads don't list is the calendar: the weekends, birthdays and school holidays the swing lands on, and the first days of every break spent turning the body clock back. If a swing gets dark, Lifeline is 13 11 14, any hour.

Where do FIFO mining jobs lead?

Short answer

FIFO mining jobs lead on through site time: a year on a machine opens the operator ads, and many trade and mine owner ads want site experience. The first job's value is getting that line onto your resume.

The ads show the ladder. The offsider ads sell the driller's seat, a trade assistant can move into an adult apprenticeship, and a fitter's trade leads to leading hand and supervisor jobs. The how to get into FIFO page has the order to do it in.

Are FIFO mining jobs right for you?

Three honest questions

Which door do you hold the key to? A trade, machine time, hospitality or a clean licence: search for that job, not for "FIFO".
Are you in the city the ad flies from? Many beginner ads want an address there. If not, the trades and the few "any capital" ads are the ones to search for.
Have you laid the roster over a calendar? The money is on the salary page. The cost is on the calendar, and the roster calculator lays it out.

Ready to look?

If you've read this far and still want in, pick your job from the list, put the licence and the clearance on the first line of your resume, and open that job's page for its search.

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).

Found your door? The other question is whether the life fits. Six questions, three minutes, free.

Is FIFO right for me?