Australian Computer Society Experience Deduction

How does ACS deduct your work experience?

ACS is Australian Computer Society and is authorized by DHA as the official assessing authority to assess ICT related occupations for skilled migration purposes.

ACS assesses your education to match your degrees with Australia’s educational system and provide a skill assessment (SA) to assess your degree as ICT Major or Minor, which in turns determine your work experience.

Since you choose to migrate under general skilled migration scheme, you have to get a positive SA, which will support your claim of education, work or … spouse point.

Usually, base on what we have seen so far, there are many engineers who want to avoid writing competency demonstration report (CDR), tried to claim their experience with ACS just to get a positive SA, in order to add point to their partner’s profile.

For bachelor degree, applied under SKILLS ASSESSMENT PATHWAY, ACS deducts minimum 2 years and maximum 6 years from your total work experience. 2 years will be deducted for every profile since ACS considered this initial 2 years as training period.

The numbers of years that will be deducted depends on how close your education matches your job profile.

Base on the illustration, we will give some examples to demonstrate the deduction:

Example 1: Bachelor in computer science/Software Engineer/BIS, working as a software engineer ANZSCO code 261313.

With this profile, comparable to AQF Bachelor degree with ICT major, you will see a deduction of 2 years.

Example 2: Bachelor of Engineering in Electrial/Electronics, working as a software engineer ANZSCO code 261313.

If you are an electrial/electronics engineer who graduated with at least 33% of the subjects in ICT: quantum computing, embedded system and microelectronics programming. Most probably, your degree is assesses as ICT major, you will get a positive SA with 4 years deductions.

Example 3: Non ICT degree, in technical/science field, working as a software engineer ANZSCO code 261313.

For example, Bachelor of Engineering in Mechatronics/Petroleum/Geoscience with at least 22% of the subjects in ICT related field: programming control, log processing. This is classified as ICT minor. We have seen many profiles of mechatronics engineer, modelling geoscientist assessed with 5 years deduction under software engineer.

Example 4: Non ICT degree, in business, working as a software engineer/ICT BA ANZSCO code 261313/261111

For example, Bachelor of Business Administration, Financial Modelling, MBA with at least 22% of the subjects in ICT. These degrees are typically classified as ICT minor and subjected to 6 years deduction under software engineer/ICT BA, provided 65% of ICT content must be closely related to the nominated occupation.

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