FIFO Operator Jobs

Can you get a FIFO operator job with no experience?

The catch is written into the ads. "Experience is essential", "This is not a green-operator role", "experienced CAT 785 Dump Truck Operators": the employers are filling a seat that's empty today, and they won't put a first-timer in it.

The traineeships are the exception, and they're worth watching by name. WorkPac was advertising trainee dump truck operators in Mackay and Rockhampton with a Certificate III attached, and Programmed the same in the Hunter Valley. On 12 October 2026, twelve of the fourteen mine operator traineeships on SEEK asked for a local address or a move to within an hour of the site, or said FIFO wasn't open to trainees. That's the second catch: a traineeship is usually a residential job, and the flying comes after it.

A handful of entry-level jobs do fly. One Goldfields site services company advertised an entry-level dump truck and loader job in October 2026, 2:1 (a fortnight on, a week off) and FIFO from Perth. Byrnecut's New to Mining program, advertised to workers around Whyalla, starts people from trades, labouring and farm work on its underground trucks.

The civil way in: water cart, roller and moxy

The other door is the civil side: the crews that build the roads, pads and dams around a mine. Its machines are the water cart, the roller and the moxy (an articulated dump truck), and most civil ads still want hours on them. One Queensland civil contractor showed the gap in October 2026. It wanted labourers who held a roller ticket and would "Operate Roller as required", and water cart operators with an HR licence plus construction experience, not hours on the cart.

A bloke who makes videos for Irish arrivals said his girlfriend had never driven a machine when she did a roller, water cart and moxy course in Perth, and she now drives the water cart on a FIFO site. He has his own discount code with the training company, so he's selling it, but his point about practice holds: the hours in the seat after the ticket are "really how people learn". Sites check you on the machine with a VOC, a verification of competency, whatever the card says, so a course that lets you come back and practise is worth more than one that doesn't.

A haul truck course is another matter. Fetch's mining ads said "Operating tickets NOT required", because they want a year of production experience instead, and the tickets page lists one bought before an offer among the things not to pay for yourself. A civil crew usually works for a different contractor from the mine's production fleet, so moving from the roller to the haul trucks means a new application.

How do you become a FIFO operator, step by step?

From no experience, in WA

1. Have a manual car licence, and get a police clearance shortly before you apply; a White Card and an HR licence help too (the full list). Every course asks for your USI (Unique Student Identifier), a free number you make online.
2. Watch for the traineeships and entry-level ads by name, and be ready to move near the mine, because most trainee jobs want locals (the traineeships).
3. If none comes up, get a roller ticket, the one a civil contractor's labourer ad asked for, then apply to the civil contractors (the civil way in; courses and costs).
4. Don't pay for a dump truck course before you have an offer, because the mining ads want production hours, not a ticket (what never to pay for).
5. Base yourself in Perth, because most WA ads fly from there and some only from there (where they fly from).
6. Apply through the labour hire agencies and contractors, searching each machine by name (the jobs by machine).
7. Once you're offered the job, the employer books the medical and drug test, then the inductions and a check of your skills on its machines.
8. On your first swing, expect a pre-start meeting, a walk around the truck, and a long shift on the same circuit (a typical day).

Outside WA

In Queensland, WorkPac's October 2026 traineeships were around Mackay and Rockhampton, where most coal jobs are local or bus-in (the Queensland hubs). A coal mine also wants Standard 11, the coal mine induction, and a coal board medical, which the employer pays for. In New South Wales, Programmed advertised its traineeships for Hunter Valley mines, and in South Australia, Byrnecut advertised its underground program around Whyalla.

Which FIFO operator jobs are there, and what does each need?

Fly in fly out dump truck and truck driving jobs

The dump truck is the entry seat on a mine and one of the most advertised. Fetch Recruitment was after twenty and thirty at a time for WA gold mines, and Mineral Resources was hiring production dump truck operators direct. Programmed had CAT 793F seats in the Pilbara on an 8:6 then 7:7 roster: eight days on and six off, then seven on and seven off.

The ad names the truck, 785, 793 or moxy, and asks for hours on that model; some pay a little more for nights. The traineeships, the pay and a day in the pit are on the FIFO dump truck page.

FIFO truck driver jobs: HR and MC

A road licence is a door of its own. An HR (heavy rigid) licence is what the water cart and service truck ads ask for. An MC (multi-combination) licence gets the road trains that haul ore, and those ads ("MC Road Train Operator") pay like plant.

The licence steps, the road train and HR jobs and their pay are on the FIFO truck driver page.

FIFO bus driver and bus driving jobs

The bus driver is the quiet door into FIFO. The camp bus runs crews between the village and the pit at shift change and sits for most of the day between, so the ads pair it with utility work. Civeo's "Bus Driver / Utility" on a 14:14 and Programmed's "Utility / Bus Driver" were both salaried, and IronMerge and Evolve Talent paid their bus drivers by the hour.

Evolve Talent's ad said "Bus Drivers with no FIFO experience encouraged to apply". The permits, the pay and the ways in without mine experience are on the FIFO bus driver page.

Fly in fly out excavator, loader and grader jobs

The excavator, the loader, the dozer and the grader are what the ads call mobile plant, and they want hours on each one by model: "D10/11 Dozers | Graders 16-24m | Loaders 988-994" was one agency's list. An all-round operator is one who can move between them, and Fetch's ads wanted two machines at least. Forklift jobs turn up in the same searches, and a forklift needs a high-risk work licence of its own, the same in every state.

What the ads ask for

Most ads ask for:

• A manual C-class driver's licence
• Experience on the named machine, with references
• The machine's ticket on civil ads (the national training unit for that plant), or an HR or MC licence for the trucks
• A national police clearance, most often dated within the last six months
• A White Card on the civil ads

After the offer, the employer arranges:

• A pre-employment medical and a drug and alcohol screen
• Site inductions and a VOC on the machine

Nice to have, and what each one gets you:

• An HR licence: several plant ads rated it highly, because it lets you drive the site's trucks, not just the plant
• A second and third machine: the all-round operator ads, which pay more than the dump truck seats

Where FIFO operator jobs fly from

The ads name their hub, and most of the October 2026 ads were out of Perth for the Pilbara and the Goldfields. Queensland's coal jobs were mostly residential or bus-in from towns such as Mackay and Rockhampton, a few Queensland jobs flew from Brisbane, and a Darwin ad flew to a gold project in the Territory.

Several WA ads flew from Perth only, and three bus ads wanted you living in Perth when you applied. A few contractors fly from anywhere. One moxy ad offered "flights to any capital city in Aus" and one Pilbara plant ad a 2:1 "from major capital cities", which is how an operator in Adelaide or Hobart gets a look in without moving.

How much do FIFO operators get paid?

Truck or plant operator: the bottom and top ad of each kind, from 20 job ads of 12 October 2026; the middle hourly figure is $62.50 an hour. Trainee operator: the bottom and top ad of each kind, from 5 job ads of 12 October 2026; the middle hourly figure is $43 an hour. Bus driver: the bottom and top ad of each kind, from 7 job ads of 12 October 2026. Only ads that stated a figure are in the table. Most don't.

To see what any of those rates 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.

Most of it is hourly and casual: the agencies pay the rate for every hour on site, super on top, and no paid leave. The permanent jobs are with the mine owners, the big contractors and the camp companies, and they come with paid leave. The rate climbs with the machine rather than the years.

What does a FIFO operator do all day?

A typical day for a FIFO operator

The camp is the village of dongas, mess and gym beside the site, and the day starts there with the bus before dawn. A trainee haul truck operator at a Hunter Valley mine, who came from childcare and admin work, described hers in a Programmed video. She arrives at site, goes to the pre-start meeting and walks around the truck looking for faults, then works a 12.5-hour shift with eleven to eleven and a half of them at the wheel.

Underground it's the same shape with a shaft in it. A bogger operator who lives in Kalgoorlie and drives in to work told an interviewer how hers runs: a handover from the operator coming off, then a shift meeting on the plan. Then it's down the shaft for the whole shift, loading trucks from the stockpile and eating on the go, with the crib room and the fuel bay underground too.

The part that isn't in the ad is the loop. A haul truck runs the same circuit from the digger to the dump all shift, and night shift is the same circuit in the dark. The fatigue rules are there because a loop you know by heart can put you to sleep. The trainee said her nerves "lasted for all of two seconds", and that her first drive was wet weather training: losing control of the truck and learning to get it back.

What is it really like being a FIFO operator?

Asked what the job had done to her health, a bogger operator from Kalgoorlie said, "It's been through hell and back, I'd say." Underground, she said, "you're inside your own head for those ten to twelve hours down there", and "it's not good for your mental health, that's for sure." She gets excited going to the workshop to see the fitters, or to the crib room for half an hour, "because you sit in a machine all day on your own."

Asked why she got in, she said it was for the money and nothing else: she'd moved from Victoria at eighteen for the mining wage, and she'd bought her first home and two cars since. Asked whether she'd stay, she said, "I've done my time." If a swing turns bad, Lifeline is 13 11 14, any hour.

Where does a FIFO operator job lead?

A Kalgoorlie bogger operator's nearly eight years in mining show the underground path in full. She started as a mine site cleaner at eighteen, did two years as a camp administrator, and got into a green trucky program underground through a friend and her partner, who worked at the site. From the truck she went nipper (the jumbo operator's offsider, carrying the bolts and mesh), then service crew and some charge-up work, and she has been on the bogger for almost four of her five years underground.

She said working at the camp put her in front of the local faces already working underground. Knowing someone helps if you want a particular site, she said, though people who went through the local agencies seemed to have just as much luck.

On the surface the ladder follows the pay in the ads: truck first, then loader, dozer or grader, then the big production excavators. One more thing to plan around: many of the Pilbara's big iron ore pits run driverless haul trucks, and the operator jobs there are on the other machines and in the escort vehicles that work around the driverless fleet. Gold mines, civil projects, underground mines and some iron ore pits still want a person in the truck.

Is a FIFO operator job right for you?

Two honest questions

1. Can you do the same loop for twelve hours, alone, and come back tomorrow? The loop and the time alone are the hard part for some people, not the work.
2. Will you take the residential traineeship to get the ticket? Most of them are in the mining towns, not out of a capital. The October 2026 ones ran one to two years, from Rockhampton to Muswellbrook, and that's the price of the fly-in seat afterwards.