Last Updated on February 21, 2026 by Ozlinks Education

The National Skills Commission (NSC) has released the 2021 Skills Priority List (SPL). The SPL provides a detailed current labour market rating and a future demand rating for occupations across Australia.

The SPL provides the key measures of labour market analysis on occupations that will be a major input to a range of Australian Government policy initiatives, including targeting of skilled migration, apprenticeship incentives and training funding.

The Skills Priority List (SPL) was officially renamed the Occupation Shortage List (OSL) in October 2024.

The 2021 Skills Priority List contains 799 ANZSCO Occupations detailed in 2 components: Current Demand and Future Demand as below:

Explanatory Notes

The current demand indicated in

  • Metropolitan Shortage (M): shortage in demand and are restricted to metropolitan areas
  • Shortages (S): Shortages exist when employers are unable to fill job vacancies
  • Regional Shortage (R): shortage in demand and are restricted to regional areas.
  • No Shortage (NS): not identified any significant difficult-to-fill job vacancies

The indication of demand in the Australia labour market in the next five year period by regions and occupations.

  • Soft: Occupations in national shortage, with soft future demand of 53 occupations.
  • Moderate: Occupations in national shortage, with moderate future demand of 481 occupations.
  • Strong: Occupations in national shortage, with strong future demand of 265 occupations.

Skills Priority List

The table below is a detailed of the 2021 Skills Priority List (SPL)

The SPL is reviewed and updated annually by the NSC

 

Disclaimer: 

Information under ANZSCO Occupations (Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations) section is published in accordance with a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia licence guideline. ANZSCO Version 1.3 updated on 25 March 2021 and original source can be accessed on Australian Bureau of Statistics website.

This section does not intend to provide immigration assistance pursuant to section 276 of Migration Act (Cth) 1994 as described in the Migration laws. It is based on public guidelines available at Department of Home Affairs’ Website. It is your responsibility to verify accuracy and status of provided information with your Registered Migration Agent (RMA) who is bound by the MARA code of conduct before submitting any visa applications.