AUSMASA has written to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) recommending changes to the classification of Drillers and Driller’s Offsiders under the Occupation Standard Classification for Australia (OSCA).

The proposed changes include moving Driller’s Offsider from the Labourers major group into Technicians and Trades Workers alongside Driller, and lifting its skill level to better reflect the occupation’s training pathway. AUSMASA has also recommended separating Driller and Driller Supervisor into distinct occupations, and renaming Driller’s Offsider to Driller’s Assistant.

These changes would provide a more accurate picture of the workforce in national labour market data, supporting workforce planning, migration, skills assessment, training investment and clearer career pathways. The recommendations are supported by key industry partners.

Read the full submission below to learn more about the proposed changes and why they matter for the drilling workforce.

Dr David Gruen AO 
Australian Statistician
Australian Bureau of Statistics 

2nd September 2026 

Dear David,  

Subject: OSCA Classification of Drillers and Driller's Offsiders

As the Jobs and Skills Council (JSC) for Australia’s mining and automotive industries, the Mining and Automotive Skills Alliance (AUSMASA) wishes to provide feedback on how Drillers and Driller’s Offsiders are grouped and classified under the OSCA classification system.

Currently, Driller's Offsider sits in Major Group 8 Labourers (Unit Group 8219), while Driller sits in Major Group 3 Technicians and Trades Workers (Unit Group 3992), with no dedicated Driller Supervisor occupation at all. This creates two problems. First, Offsider's classification describes routine, supervised labouring work, when the role in practice involves technical calculations, safety-critical diagnosis, and unsupervised equipment operation from around six months in, misclassifying the entry point to the Driller trade as an unrelated labouring occupation. Second, Driller's own classification folds a genuine step up in licensing, planning, and crew supervision into a single specialisation (Rig Manager) alongside unrelated technique-based specialisations, leaving OSCA with no way to record supervision as its own occupation. The following recommendations address both issues.

These classification issues also have material workforce consequences. Industry has advised AUSMASA that, because Driller's Offsider is classified as a labouring occupation rather than as part of the skilled Driller pathway, some drilling contractors face significant barriers to sponsoring experienced workers, particularly metropolitan-based businesses that are unable to access regional migration arrangements such as DAMAs. Employers report losing trained workers when visas expire, contributing to attrition rates of over 50 per cent, unfilled crews, and rigs being taken out of operation. In a sector that supports exploration and critical minerals development, this is increasingly a constraint on project delivery.

Recommendations

1. Reclassify Driller's Offsider out of Major Group 8 Labourers and into Major Group 3 Technicians and Trades Workers, alongside Driller.
2. Lift the Offsider skill level from Skill Level 4 to Skill Level 3.
3. Split Driller into two occupations: Driller (retained at Skill Level 3) and Driller Supervisor (new, at Skill Level 2), replacing the current Rig Manager specialisation.
4. Rename Driller’s Offsider to Driller’s Assistant.

Recommendation 1: Reclassify Driller's Offsider into Major Group 3 Technicians and Trades Workers

What OSCA says now

●     OSCA places Driller's Offsider (821931) in Unit Group 8219 Other Construction and Mining Labourers, inside Major Group 8 Labourers.

●     Major Group 8 covers occupations that perform routine and repetitive physical tasks using hand and power tools and machines, individually or as part of a team, assisting more skilled workers such as Trades Workers and Machinery Operators and Drivers.

●     Sub-major Group 82 Construction and Mining Labourers narrows this further: routine tasks in construction, road, rail and mining work, usually performed under supervision.

●     Unit Group 8219 groups Driller's Offsider together with Lagger, Mining Support Worker, Rail Protection Officer, Railway Track Worker and Surveyor's Assistant, occupations OSCA describes as “not elsewhere classified.”

Why does this not reflect the work undertaken by Driller’s Offsiders

Offsiders do not perform routine, repetitive tasks under someone else's direction. They run technical parts of the job themselves:

• Engineering arithmetic. They calculate casing depth, slotting and blank requirements, and the volumes of gravel and cement a bore needs.
• They read mud viscosity against a target index and correct it before it costs the crew time or money.
• Safety-critical judgement calls. They pick up gravel packing faults before they bridge the annulus and damage the rig or the hole.
• They service rig systems (hammer, engine, compressor, hydraulic) with the correct oils and filters and operate a backhoe to move 500kg to 1 tonne loads unsupervised, inside six months.
• They read ground conditions that shift from soft in the Pilbara to hard rock in the Goldfields and adjust technique accordingly.

Offsiders also don't “assist” a Driller the way a Lagger assists a Trades Worker. Further, being a Lagger is not a step towards being a Trades Worker, whereas, there is no path to being a Driller except through being an Offsider. Unit Group 8219 has no way to record that relationship, because it groups Offsiders with occupations that have no such progression.

How the reclassification fixes it

Major Group 3 covers occupations that perform skilled tasks, applying broad or in-depth technical, trade or industry-specific knowledge. This is a direct match for what an offsider does. Moving Driller's Offsider into Major Group 3, ideally into Unit Group 3992 Drillers alongside Driller itself, lets OSCA show the occupation for what it is: the entry point to the Driller trade, not an unrelated labouring role.

Recommendation 2: Lift the Offsider skill level from 4 to 3

What OSCA says now

• Skill Level 4 requires an AQF Certificate II, AQF Certificate III, or at least one year of relevant experience.
• Skill Level 3, the level OSCA already assigns to Driller, requires an AQF Certificate III including at least two years of on-the-job training, an AQF Certificate IV, or at least three years of relevant experience.

Why Skill Level 4 is an inaccurate classification for the Offsider occupation

• The Certificate II offsiders are encouraged, but not required, to hold covers safety content. It doesn't deliver the technical drilling knowledge offsiders use every shift.
• That technical knowledge, day-book sequencing, core block interpretation, rod and rig configuration, is delivered through the Certificate III, completed while working as a “driller's assistant” over roughly two years.
• Skill Level 4's one-year experience threshold understates how long the role actually takes to master: offsiders take on unsupervised, safety-critical tasks (mixing mud, handling rods, servicing equipment) from around six months, and keep building toward full Certificate III competence over roughly two years, in line with Skill Level 3, not Skill Level 4.

How the uplift fixes it

Recognising Skill Level 3 lines the Offsider's formal skill threshold up with the training pathway it already runs on, a Certificate III with structured on-the-job training, and with the skill level OSCA already assigns to the occupation the role trains toward.

Recommendation 3: Split Driller into Driller and Driller Supervisor, and lift the Supervisor to Skill Level 2

What OSCA says now

• Driller (399231) assembles, positions and operates drilling rigs and related equipment for exploration or extraction of ore, liquids or gases; registration or licensing may apply.
• Its main tasks cover operating and monitoring drill rigs, inspecting and maintaining equipment, recording drilling data and testing samples, and, as the final task on the list, “may supervise and direct the work of Driller's Offsiders.”
• Rig Manager sits inside Driller as one of six specialisations, alongside Blast Hole Driller, Diamond Driller, Directional Driller, Exploration Driller and Jumbo Operator, all folded into the same Skill Level 3 occupation.
  • Additionally, these specialisations are also incorrect, as industry practitioners treat diamond drilling as inherently directional rather than a separate discipline, since both rely on the same down-hole survey tools to keep the hole on line and feed data back to a geologist. What the list ignores is: RC drilling, with its own equipment and tasks (KL arm, cyclone adjustment, splitting samples into calico bags), and water well drilling, with its own calculations and coordination (casing and gravel volumes, mud viscosity, salinity, working with a hydrologist), are distinct disciplines with different day-to-day task lists, yet neither RC nor Water Well appears as a specialisation at all.

Why folding Supervisor into Driller doesn't work

Listing supervision as an optional, final main task hides a genuine step up in responsibility:

• Supervisors hold a higher class of licence (Class 2 or 3) that a Driller doesn't need.
• Supervisors develop the bore or hole plan directly with a hydrologist or exploration and site manager. A Driller executes a plan; a Supervisor helps set it.
• Supervisors manage a full crew, typically around two Drillers and six Offsiders per rig, including training and progressing Offsiders. Nothing in Driller's main task list covers people management.
• Supervisors carry accountability for safety and quality across the whole rig, diagnosing and correcting mud, casing and gravel problems the crew raises, not just executing their own technical work.

Skill Level 2 requires an AQF Associate Degree, Advanced Diploma or Diploma, or at least three years of relevant experience, sitting above Skill Level 3. But folding Rig Manager into Driller as a specialisation gives OSCA nowhere to record that difference: a specialisation shares its parent occupation's skill level by definition, so it can't sit at Skill Level 2 while Driller sits at Skill Level 3.

How the split fixes it

A standalone Driller Supervisor occupation, at Skill Level 2, lets OSCA capture the licensing, planning and crew-management step up as its own occupation, the way OSCA already separates supervisory and trade-level roles elsewhere in the classification. Driller stays at Skill Level 3, matched to its current, accurate task list.

Recommendation 4: Rename Driller's Offsider to Driller’s Assistant

Driller's Offsider's current alternative titles, Driller's Assistant and Roustabout (Oil and Gas), describe the role as help supplied to someone else, not as a stage in becoming a Driller. That's not how the industry actually talks about the job: job ads routinely list the role as "Driller’s Assistant" alongside Driller's Offsider, and the career progression itself runs green offsider, offsider, senior offsider, driller's assistant, driller, using " driller's assistant" as the final stage before qualifying. Renaming the occupation to Driller’s Assistant, or at a minimum adding it as the primary alternative title, brings OSCA's language into line with the industry's own usage and reinforces the pathway argument underpinning Recommendations 1 to 3. Finally, Driller's Offsider is not simply a placeholder for people partway through an apprenticeship; many offsiders remain in the role for years or an entire career without progressing to Driller. The rename reflects that the occupation's primary population is training toward Driller, without claiming that everyone who holds it will get there, and without creating a new intermediate occupation that would sit awkwardly against OSCA's existing conventions.

These changes would in turn support:

• Workforce Planning: accurate classification lets AUSMASA and government agencies track genuine skill shortages and training needs across the Driller pathway, rather than obscuring them across Labourers and Trades Workers.
• Migration and Skills Assessment: a correctly classified Offsider role gives skills assessing authorities and visa pathways an accurate benchmark for the qualifications and experience the role actually requires.
• Training Investment: aligning skill levels with the true Certificate II/III pathway supports funding and curriculum decisions that reflect what offsiders and drillers actually need to learn.
• Career Pathway Visibility: recognising Driller’s Assistant and Driller Supervisor as distinct, recorded occupations makes the industry's career progression visible to job seekers, schools, and career advisors, supporting recruitment into the trade.

We appreciate that the ABS undertakes a significant amount of work and produces rigorous high-quality output that we frequently rely on to undertake our Workforce Planning and other Research activities. We look forward to engaging with you on these issues and potential solutions. At the same time, we are open to any solutions that may support the goals we have identified and are keen to support ABS if we can.  

Should you wish to discuss this further, please reach out to Dr Aneeq Khan, Senior Manager, Workforce Planning and Policy, who leads our Research division and can be contacted at aneeq.khan@ausmasa.org.au.  

Sincerely, 

Dr Gavin Lind
Chief Executive Officer
Mining and Automotive Skills Alliance Ltd