FIFO Trade Assistant Jobs
Trade assistant work is one of the ways onto a mine site that doesn't need a trade. It pays well above camp and kitchen work. But the job goes nowhere on its own, and what you do in your first twelve months decides whether it was a door or a dead end. If that's the deal you want, walk through it with your eyes open.
What a FIFO trade assistant is
A FIFO trade assistant, a TA, is the labourer who works beside a qualified tradesperson on a mine site, fetching tools, setting up the job and cleaning up. No trade is needed. The ads say TA, trades assistant or labourer.
FIFO trade assistant jobs: Where to start
- No site experienceStart here
- Have tickets, want the shutdown moneyStart here
- Already a TA in the cityStart here
- On a working holiday visaStart here
- Want a trade out of itStart here
- Want the pay firstStart here
Find FIFO trade assistant 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 "trades assistant", "TA" and "labourer" as well as "FIFO trade assistant", because the ads use all four. The roster line sorts the fly-in jobs from the city workshops.
Before you apply, check where each ad's flights leave from, called the point of hire. Getting there is usually up to you.
FIFO trade assistant jobs at a glance
| Pay | $45 to $57 an hour in the October 2026 ads, middle $53; about $155,000 a year at the middle rate on 2:1 |
|---|---|
| Rosters | 2:1 (two weeks on, one off) on most ads; 8:6, 14:7 and 3:1 on some; shutdowns of one to four weeks |
| Flies from | Perth for most ads, Adelaide for two; several took Perth applicants only |
| You'll need | A driver's licence, a White Card and a police clearance; a medical and drug screen after the offer |
| Experience | Most ads wanted some, and many named a ticket too: forklift, EWP (elevating work platform), telehandler or a heavy rigid truck licence |
| Who hires | Labour hire (Fetch, Programmed), shutdown and maintenance contractors (Monadelphous), mining contractors (MACA, Macmahon); Northern Star and other mine owners hire their TAs locally |
Pay from the job ads of 12 October 2026; listings checked September 2026.
Can you get a FIFO trade assistant job with no experience?
Short answer
You can get a FIFO trade assistant job without a trade, but rarely without experience: most of the ads in September 2026 wanted site experience, a ticket, or both.
No site experience: the city workshop first
The catch is the word experienced. In September 2026, Fetch's ad wanted "Experienced FIFO Trades Assistants" for a camp build, and a dewatering job through an agency wanted at least 12 months' experience. A roads and earthworks contractor's ad said "Due to a high volume of applicants, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted". The fly-in ads are where experienced hands go, not where new ones start.
The city is where a new TA gets that experience. One crushing contractor's Perth ad called itself a "Fantastic opportunity to get your foot in the door at a mining company", Monday to Friday. Six months in a job like that turns "no experience" into "workshop TA", which is what the FIFO ads want.
On a working holiday visa
A visa is a line in the ad, so read it before you apply. One agency's ad for a mine site yard job said "Working holiday visa cannot be considered", and the dewatering job wanted citizens or permanent residents. Others say nothing, and the page for workers from overseas has which employers are open to working holiday makers.
How do you get a FIFO trade assistant job, step by step?
Short answer
You get a FIFO trade assistant job through a labour hire agency or a contractor's shutdown pool, where most of the October 2026 ads sat.
Labour hire agencies employ you and send you to a site, and contractors run the shutdowns and builds for the mine owners. Most of those jobs were casual, so being asked back for the next swing is the security you have.
From no site experience, in WA
- Get your licence, White Card and police check sorted: most TA ads ask for all three. Every course asks for your USI (Unique Student Identifier), a free number you make online.
- Start with six months as a TA in a Perth workshop or yard, Monday to Friday, since most fly-in TA ads wanted site experience (why the city first).
- Add one ticket a contractor asks for: EWP, forklift or telehandler for the shutdown crews, or an HR (heavy rigid) licence for civil and pipeline work (tickets open the door).
- Base yourself in Perth, because the WA ads fly from there and some take Perth applicants only (where they fly from).
- Then apply widely, under every title the ads use.
- Once you have an offer, the employer books the medical and drug test and the inductions; some jobs need you clean shaven for the respirator fit test.
- On site, expect fire watch, hole watch and a lot of waiting on permits, across twelve-hour days (a typical day).
- Use the first year to choose your next move: a trade, the operator traineeships or the rigging crews (where it leads).
Outside WA, or on a working holiday visa
Outside WA, Adelaide is the other hub on these ads, for South Australian jobs (the hubs), and on a Queensland coal mine Standard 11 comes first.
On a working holiday visa, read the visa line first, because some ads ruled you out (visas).
Shutdown crews: the tickets open the door
A shutdown is the week or few when a processing plant is switched off for repairs, and it needs trade assistants in numbers. One contractor's ad flew trade assistants to Port Hedland for a four-week shutdown from 7 October 2026, paid two hours' travel time, and called EWP, forklift and telehandler tickets "mandatory". A second contractor wanted trade assistants with telehandler or EWP tickets for Pilbara shutdowns in September.
That is why, for a TA, tickets count for more than a trade. A ticket for the EWP (the cherry picker), the telehandler (the forklift with a boom) or an HR truck (heavy rigid) each turns a labourer into someone the crew can use. The tickets page has where to do most of them and what they cost.
What the ads ask for
Most ads ask for:
- A driver's licence
- A White Card, the construction safety card
- A national police clearance, though one ad said "or ability to obtain"
After the offer, the employer arranges:
- A pre-employment medical and a laboratory drug and alcohol test, which one ad said runs "prior to start work and ongoing during employment"
- Site inductions, and on some jobs a mask fit test, which needs you clean shaven
Nice to have, and what each one gets you:
- Working at heights and confined space: the conveyor maintenance jobs, which listed both
- A forklift or telehandler ticket: the shutdown crews and the yards
- An EWP ticket: the shutdown contractors; the Port Hedland ad called it mandatory
- A heavy rigid licence: the civil and pipe jobs, which asked for it by name
Where FIFO trade assistant jobs fly from
In September and October 2026 the ads mostly flew from Perth to the Pilbara and the Goldfields, and several said so in one line: "FIFO from Perth only". Two Adelaide ads flew TAs to South Australian jobs, one of them an Olympic Dam shutdown. Monadelphous wanted local TAs in Karratha for work on a gas plant, with Karratha as the point of hire, the place the job starts from.
How much does a FIFO trade assistant make?
Short answer
A FIFO trade assistant was advertised at $45 to $57 an hour in October 2026, middle $53. The hours make the year: on 2:1, two weeks on and one off, with 12-hour shifts, the middle rate comes to about $155,000 a year before tax.
| Role | Advertised pay | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest hourly ad | $45 per hour | SEEK, Red Appointments, October 2026 |
| Highest hourly ad | $56 – $57 per hour | SEEK, Altrad Services, October 2026 |
The bottom and top ad of each kind, from 6 job ads of 12 October 2026; the middle hourly figure is $53 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 job side by side.
Most of these rates are casual or contract work: super on top, no paid leave, and no pay between jobs. The year is big because the week is, twelve hours a day for a fortnight, so look at the hourly rate behind any big weekly total. In September 2026 some ads offered the job full time instead, one with annual and personal leave and MACA's at Gruyere with a permanent camp room.
What does a FIFO trade assistant do all day?
A typical day for a FIFO trade assistant
The camp is the village of rooms, mess and gym beside the site, and the day starts there with the bus before dawn. On site the first hour is paperwork and permits: the prestart meeting, the job safety sheet, and the isolation, the locks that make sure the machine can't start while someone is inside it. The TA sets the job up while the tradesperson waits for the permit: barricades, air and water hoses, the tools laid out, the parts washed.
Then the trade work starts and the TA stands by it. Fire watch is standing with an extinguisher while someone welds or grinds, for the whole time they do. Hole watch is the same job at the mouth of a confined space, and spotting is watching the ground for someone on a cherry picker or under a crane load. It is a job even when it doesn't feel like one, and it can fill hours of a shift.
The crew decides the day, and the waiting fills it
In the processing plant the day is crushers, screens and conveyors, and rock that has set like concrete in a chute. In the mobile workshop it is diesel fitters, heavy sockets and oil, and on a build it is bolting conveyor frames and pulling cable. The part that isn't in the ad is the waiting: a permit, a briefing, a tradesperson who doesn't need you yet. A twelve-hour day can be long and empty in the middle.
What is it really like being a FIFO trade assistant?
Short answer
A FIFO trade assistant job is twelve hours of lifting, carrying and waiting in the heat, at the bottom of the crew and paid less than the tradespeople on it. It pays more than the camp jobs because it asks more of your back.
You are at the foot of the trade crew, not near it, and the first swing shows you. The tradesperson decides what you carry, and a new TA carries the heaviest of it. The crew is watching for one thing: whether you pull your weight.
The body is the other half: heavy tools and parts carried across a plant you walk all day, in forty-degree heat in summer and full gear for twelve hours. Against a cleaning or kitchen job it is harder and better paid for it. Against a driller's offsider, who handles steel drill rods all shift, it is easier, and it paid more by the hour too: in October 2026 the offsider ads' middle was $43 an hour.
If a swing turns bad, Lifeline is 13 11 14, any hour.
Where does a FIFO trade assistant job lead?
Short answer
A FIFO trade assistant job leads to a trade, an operator's seat or the rigging crew, and your first year on site shapes which. Staying a TA keeps you on the crew's smallest rate for as long as you stay.
Some mining employers take adult apprentices, and the apprenticeships page has who runs them and when. A good word from a supervisor who has watched you work helps any application.
The apprentice's pay cut
An apprenticeship means dropping from a TA's wage to an apprentice's: the apprentice ads' middle in October 2026 was $27.50 an hour, about half a trade assistant's. Adults with a mortgage or a family often can't do it, and that is arithmetic, not weakness. So the year to prepare for the pay cut is the year you are earning TA money, and the plan is mostly about what you don't spend.
The doors that don't need a trade
The other ways up skip the apprenticeship. One is a trainee operator's seat on a truck or a loader, though most mine traineeships, paid jobs with the training built in, wanted locals in October 2026. Another is a dogging or rigging ticket, which puts you on the shutdown crews at a better rate with no trade at all. Each one starts from the same place: a TA the crew already knows, and a reference from the supervisor who watched.
Is a FIFO trade assistant job right for you?
Two honest questions
- What do you want it to turn into? An apprenticeship, an operator's seat, the rigging crew, or nothing in particular, which is a fair answer. Write it down now, so the first year works towards it.
- Can you take the rough jobs for a year? The crew hands them to the newest TA and watches what you do with them. If that would eat at you, the camp jobs ask less and pay less, and nobody thinks the worse of you for choosing them.
Ready to look?
If you've read this far and still want in, get the licence sorted first, then one ticket a contractor's ad asks for, then search all four job titles, not just the one.
- FIFO trade assistant jobs on SEEK (opens in a new tab)
- FIFO trade assistant jobs on Indeed (opens in a new tab)
- FIFO trade assistant 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?