Hi There,

I am coming over to live in May, I profession I work in is BMS Building Management Systems also known as Controls Engineer. I work in all aspects of the industry and am highly sort after both here in the UK and Australia. I have been looking on the Australian gov website and cannot find a direct link to BMS/Controls although I have seen air conditioning engineer.

Are there any people out there in the controls industry that could help me to find how they applied?

A lot of people go down the electrical route, I myself came into the industry via another route and have no qualifications as there are not any within our industry and therfore am not electrically qualified.

Has anyone been in the same boat? I am not optimistic as nobody in the world knows what the hell I actually do but a breakdown of my job follows.

A controls engineer designs and makes a building more energy efficiant. I write the software, intergrate with other systems as well as design graphics for the building's BMS computer to help people monitor and maintain a building. My field controls the buildings air con, boilers, power usage, CCTV and security. As you can see we cover so many aspects but there doesn't seem to be anything on it the Aussie Gov website, yet the companies in oz are screaming for us. An help would be greatly received.

Dan

Have you actually got a Permanent Residents Visa? If you haven't and you are going for a skilled visa you may have to choose a skill closer to what you do rather than an Electrical skill - such as a software engineer.

What kind of BMS systems do you work on, Honeywell , Trend or other?
I did a few Trend courses in England about 9 or 10 years ago and remember one of the instructors mentioning that there was a company in Sydney using Trend equipment and that they were always looking for people qualified or experienced in Trend systems. It could be worth contacting a few people that work for some of the BMS systems manufacturers in the UK to see who and where their customers are, then you could approach them.

I am an industrial electrician and have 2 electrical licences(Electrical Fitter and Electrical Mechanic) but understand that you may not need one. It's possible you may be required to get a restricted electrical licence but they aren't too difficult to get I believe. In Queensland if your job requires you to work near exposed electrical equipment but not to do electrical wiring type work (apart for some very basic connections) then you can get a Restricted Electrical Licence. You may need the restricted licence just to access the electrical panels that the BMS systems are installed in even if it is just to plug a laptop in. If you are wiring the data cables you may need to get a Data Communications licence depending on which State you work in. having said that I don't have a Data Comms licence but still do a bit of Data wiring (on the sly).

Good luck with the job hunting and if I notice anything in your line I'll post it up.

Hi migrantoz,

Sorry I probably should of put that I have a job offer already and am coming over on a 457 visa.

I work on numerous system and without sounding too much like an arrogant twat am pretty good at most of them. This is not because I am a genius but because the guys who taught me were probably the best in the business and if I could get nearly as good as them then I know I have made it!!!

The systems I work on are American Auto Matrix, Trend, Tridium, ALC and Siemens although the later I cannot stand unless it is the American version of it (APOGEE) and not the Swiss version (PX).

A guy has just sent me a message asking me if I was looking for work, if that was through you then thank you very much. It is nice to know that there are people out there who ain't as dog eat dog as they are here in the UK.

It looks like I will be landing at the end of May with my wife and two little girls (Aged 2 & 5) and I am nervous, scared, excited and bloody crazy at the same time. By the sounds of it you know exactly what I do and by the sounds of it you do the same thing, which is bloody nice and rare. Most people think what we do is voodoo magic. Whereabouts in Oz (if you are out there) did you settle? I myself am Melbourne bound but they sesem to be screaming out for controls guys right now the world over.

Once again many thanks for your reply. It is weird that our jobs don't really exist in the real world and yet without us buildings just wouldn't work!

Regards,

Daniel

Hi Daniel,

I live on the Sunshine Coast which is an hours drive north of Brisbane, I've been here nearly 5 years.
I haven't worked with BMS systems for 5 years and only then on Trend as a user/maintainer at a tobacco factory in Southampton. I now work at a factory as an industrial electrician and instrumentation electrician. I've had a fair bit of exposure to PLCs over the last 7 years. I get to do a bit of work with PLCs and HMIs which I enjoy but not an expert. It's the part of my job I enjoy the most though. I've done a few minor programming projects and enjoy using PLC software for fault finding.

You'll have a great time with your family, work obviously depends on the people and environment. Your kids are young enough to not be too phased by it all so long as they are with you. Our kids were a lot older than yours and settled in really quick.

Hope it all goes well for you, and you like the beer. Mmmm beer, now I come to mention it.

Neil