FIFO Plumber Jobs
A plumber who flies in to a mine works on one side of the fence or the other. On one side is the camp, a town of hundreds of rooms, and on the other the mine, with its plant and water pipes. The pay is good and steady, though below an electrician's, so start by picking a side.
What a FIFO plumber is
A FIFO plumber looks after the pipes in a mine's camp or on the mine, on a fly in fly out roster. In the camp that's the hot water, showers, kitchens and sewage, and on the mine it's the plant's pipework and the water mains. Some plumbers build and refurbish the camps, project by project.
FIFO plumber jobs: Where to start
- Licensed, want steady camp workStart here
- Licensed, want project workStart here
- Want the mine side, not the campStart here
- Licensed in another stateStart here
- Want the top rateStart here
- Not a plumber yetStart here
Find FIFO plumber jobs
The ads are on SEEK (opens in a new tab), Indeed (opens in a new tab) and Jora (opens in a new tab). Search "camp maintenance plumber", "plumber gas fitter" and "NPI plumber" as well as "FIFO plumber"; NPI is non-process infrastructure, the industry's word for the camp and everything around the plant.
Before you apply, check where each ad's flights leave from, called the point of hire. Getting there is usually up to you.
FIFO plumber jobs at a glance
| Pay | $50 to $70 an hour in the ads, middle $65; $120,000 to $140,000 a year salaried |
|---|---|
| Rosters | 2:1 (two weeks on, one off) and 8:6 (eight days on, six off) on most; a fortnight on and a fortnight off on some camp jobs; days only on many |
| Flies from | Perth for most WA jobs; Mackay for the Bowen Basin; a few from Brisbane and Sydney for the Territory and New South Wales |
| You'll need | A plumbing licence from the site's state, a driver's licence, a police clearance and often gas fitting; a medical after the offer |
| Experience | Trade experience on every ad; mining or camp experience "highly regarded" on several |
| Who hires | Agencies, plumbing contractors, the camp companies, and now and then a mine owner direct |
Pay from the job ads of 12 October 2026; listings checked October 2026.
Can you do FIFO as a plumber?
Short answer
You can do FIFO as a plumber, and October 2026's ads were for three kinds of work: camp maintenance, camp builds and refurbishments, and plumbing on the mine site. The ads want a plumbing licence issued by the site's own state.
Camp maintenance
A mine camp is a village of dongas, a mess and a gym for hundreds of workers, often with a bathroom in every room. Camp maintenance keeps it running: Sodexo's October 2026 ad listed servicing, breakdowns, leak detection and fault finding "across sanitary, drainage, and water supply systems".
Another camp ad had the plumber reporting to the village manager, on hot water units, pumps and water treatment as well as the drains. The work runs all year: Sodexo's job was full time, on day shifts only, with a small on-call roster.
Camp builds and refurbishments
Camps get built, moved and refurbished, and plumbers go in with the other trades. In October 2026 three agencies were hiring plumbers to refurbish mining camps in WA, and that work runs from one project to the next. In September, one contractor wanted a plumber and gas fitter "for northern goldfields maintenance and construction", the two jobs in one.
On the mine: plant, water and dewatering
One agency's October ad wanted plumbers with "Fixed Plant experience" for a Rio Tinto site, and a contractor had maintenance work at two Rio Tinto iron ore mines, including steel pipework. In the Bowen Basin, one contractor's plumbers looked after both the mine site and its camp.
A lot of a mine's water runs through black poly pipe, joined by heat welding rather than threads. Several October ads asked for a poly welding ticket, and one maintenance job included "Water main upgrades using electrofusion (EF) welding".
Dewatering is pumping the groundwater out of a pit or an underground mine so the miners can work. Its crews are dewatering technicians rather than plumbers, and one October ad asked: "Experienced with bores, pumps and poly welding?" A plumber with the poly ticket has one of the three.
How do you get a FIFO plumber job, step by step?
Short answer
You get a FIFO plumber job through labour hire agencies, plumbing contractors and the camp companies, such as Sodexo, Compass Group and ISS. A mine owner hires a plumber direct now and then: two gold miners did in September 2026.
About half of the ads in October 2026 came from labour hire agencies, which place plumbers with contractors and mines. The camp companies hire their own maintenance plumbers, and theirs were the salaried ads.
One camp company's ad summed up the camp job in September 2026: a "FIFO role without the pressure of shutdowns construction deadlines or production-driven work", on days only.
With a plumbing licence, in WA
- Pick your side first: camp maintenance for steady salaried work, camp builds that run project to project, or the mine's pipework.
- Get licensed in the state the site is in, which for the Pilbara and the Goldfields means WA. Licensed elsewhere? Lodge the paperwork with WA's regulator before you apply (how that works).
- Add the tickets your side asks for: gas fitting for the camps, poly welding for the mine, a heavy rigid truck licence plus machine tickets for trench work. Get the ones your side's ads call essential first; the rest are optional (where to get each one). Every course asks for your USI (Unique Student Identifier), a free number you make online.
- Base yourself in Perth if you can, because most flights to site start there and getting to Perth is up to you (where they fly from).
- Get a police check not long before you apply, since the camp companies want a recent one. Then apply to several employers on your side in the same week: the camp companies for maintenance, and the agencies and plumbing contractors for builds and the mine.
- Once you're offered the job, the employer books your medical and drug test and the site inductions.
- On your first swing, the plumbing is the part you know; the long days and the heat are what take getting used to (a typical day).
- From there, you can run a crew as leading hand, then a camp's trades team, or move across to a plumber operator job on the water lines (where it leads).
In Queensland
On a Queensland coal mine, the site wants a Queensland plumbing licence, plus Standard 11, the state's coal mine induction, and a coal board medical, which the employer pays for. Those jobs fly from Mackay.
What the ads ask for
Most ads ask for:
- A plumbing licence for the site's state
- A driver's licence, and a heavy rigid (HR) licence on some
- A national police clearance; Sodexo wanted one "issued within 6 months"
After the offer, the employer arranges:
- A pre-employment medical and a drug and alcohol screen
- Site inductions; one ad asked for plumbers "Rio Tinto Inducted or willing to get inducted"
Nice to have, and what each one gets you:
- A gas fitting licence: several camp and contractor ads made it essential
- Poly welding, joining plastic pipe with heat: water mains and other pipework on the mine
- An HR licence and machine tickets, such as excavator and skid steer: jobs where the plumber digs the trench as well as laying the pipe
- Working at heights and confined space: the camp refurbishment jobs that asked for them
The tickets page has where to do each one and what it costs.
Licensed in another state
Each state licenses its own plumbers, so a Pilbara or Goldfields job wants a WA Plumbing Tradesperson Licence, and a Bowen Basin job a QBCC licence, from Queensland's building regulator. A plumber licensed in another state, except Queensland, can work in WA on the home licence after lodging a notice of intent with WA's regulator, and gas fitters can do the same.
A Queensland plumber applies for a WA licence by mutual recognition instead, and WA's plumbing licensing page, checked in October 2026, quoted 6 to 8 weeks for a licence to be issued. Several WA ads wanted a WA licence, so lodge the notice or the application before you apply for the job.
Where FIFO plumber jobs fly from
Most of the WA jobs flew from Perth, and one agency's ad said "Flights to site are from Perth only", so getting to the hub was up to the worker. Another agency took only plumbers already living in WA, though it welcomed interstate plumbers ready to move there.
How much do FIFO plumbers make?
Short answer
FIFO plumbers were advertised at $50 to $70 an hour in October 2026, with the middle ad at $65. That's $187,000 a year on a 2:1 roster, two weeks on and one off. Salaried jobs were advertised at $120,000 to $140,000 a year.
| Role | Advertised pay | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest hourly ad | $50 – $55 per hour | SEEK, BMC Plumbing and Gas, October 2026 |
| Highest hourly ad | $60 - $70 per hour | SEEK, Core Talent, October 2026 |
| Lowest salaried ad | $120,000 a year | Jora, Iconic Catering, October 2026 |
| Highest salaried ad | $135,000 - $140,000 a year | Jora, ISS, October 2026 |
The bottom and top ad of each kind, from 19 job ads of 12 October 2026; the middle hourly figure is $65 an hour. 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 trade side by side.
What the rate doesn't tell you
Most hourly ads were casual or short contracts, paid for the hours worked, with super on top and no paid leave. The salaried camp jobs come to less than the hourly ads over a year, but they keep paying through the weeks off.
One Brisbane plumber starting his first FIFO job said on a FIFO podcast that his employer annualised his salary. He was paid every week, the week off included, with overtime and call-out fees added on top, which ended his worry about "being short on the ute payments".
Plumbers earn less per hour than electricians and mechanical fitters, whose ads paid $60 to $105 an hour and $60 to $103 an hour that month.
What does a FIFO plumber do all day?
A typical day for a FIFO plumber
On camp maintenance the day starts in the camp and stays there. The plumber works through a list of jobs around the village, from a hot water unit or a blocked drain to the sewage pumps, with call-outs after hours on some jobs.
On the mine side it's the bus to site at dawn and a shift on pipework, pumps or water mains, out in the open. Either way it's 10 to 12 hours a day, every day of the swing. The part that isn't in the ad is the heat, because inland summers run into the 40s.
What is it really like being a FIFO plumber?
Short answer
A FIFO plumber's day is a round of repairs across a camp of hundreds of people, or a shift on the mine's pipework, often in fierce heat. It's the same trade without the drive between jobs, and with a week or two at a time away from home.
A first-timer's worries
A Brisbane commercial plumber of ten years told a FIFO podcast about the job he was about to start, maintaining a site in remote South Australia that he said was "40-odd years old". He was 25, and a chef supervisor he knew had got him the job. The pay was "substantially more than what you get in Brisbane", and his roster was 140 hours a fortnight: ten hours a day, seven days a week.
What he dreaded was "the things you're gonna miss out on": his young nephews' birthdays, and a camping trip already booked for a week he'd be away. About the work itself, he was nervous only about summer: "in excess of 40, 50, and humid as hell" out there.
He wanted two years out of it and a first home. His way of handling the unknown was to keep it small: it was only two weeks, he said, and if he hated it, it was still only two weeks. If a swing turns bad, Lifeline is 13 11 14, any hour.
Where does a FIFO plumber job lead?
Short answer
A FIFO plumber job leads to leading hand, then camp maintenance supervisor, over the plumbers, carpenters and other trades on a village. Poly welding and machine tickets open the mine-side jobs and the crews that dig and lay water lines.
Leading hand is the first step up, running a small crew of plumbers, and a September 2026 ad was for leading hand FIFO plumbers. Above that is camp maintenance supervisor: one ad at Newman wanted someone to "lead a small trades team across remote camps".
The other way up is sideways, onto the crews that build a mine's water lines and drains. In September 2026 one contractor was hiring a "FIFO Plumber Operator", a plumber who runs the machines too, for "remote plumbing and civil operations across WA".
Is a FIFO plumber job right for you?
Two honest questions
- Camp or mine? The camp jobs are steady and often on day shifts, and the jobs on the mine want plant experience, poly welding or machine tickets. Pick the side before you compare two ads.
- Have you got gas fitting? Without it you're applying for fewer of the camp jobs.
Ready to look?
If you've read this far and still want in, get your paperwork into one file, then search for the job by name, camp maintenance, NPI or fixed plant, not only the trade.
- FIFO plumber jobs on SEEK (opens in a new tab)
- FIFO plumber jobs on Indeed (opens in a new tab)
- FIFO plumber 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?