Me and my family I have decided we would like to leave the UK and we have a visa option for a country in Europe but our preference would be to move to Australia. As a kid I had PR in NZ but returned to the UK.

I'm struggling to get a definitive answer as to the best route we could potentially take with the visa options, if any at all.

I'm a 36yo Production Engineer with 10+years experience and before that as an Applications/Sales Engineer. However I have no degree but HNC/HND's in engineering and business.
My partner is the same age and has worked in childcare since leaving school. She is Level 3 qualified and has nursery and school experience. No degree.
We have a 10yo child as well.

I don't think we score enough points for the "easier" visa options but have seen the option of employer sponsorship. How likely is it either one of us would be sponsored? I've seen recent changes allow Early Childhood Education and Care Workers (ECEC) to be sponsored. Is this actually happening in reality? The minimum salary for sponsorhip is $72/76K+ i forget exactly, which is huge compared to the UK where this is a minimum wage job. She cannot go fo the Early Childhood Teacher route which appears to an easier route in.

We are open to moving to all states at this stage.

Before we give up on Australia, we would like to know 100% we have no realistic options.

Also what is the best online points calcualtor to use? I score on the boaderline sometimes and just below on others. But i know scoring enough points is no guarantee of a visa.

Thank You

To be honest, your best bet would be a consultation with a registered migration agent. They can look at all the possible pathways,and advise you which is most likely to succeed. Calculating points is all very useful, but many visas - especially those involving sponsorship, aren't points based. An agent could also advise which of you would be best as the Primary applicant, which could partly depend on which job is most in demand at the time.

Thank for the reply. To be honest I was hoping to get an answer without paying but I guess that might be wishful thinking. We have already paid a lot of money securing (in principle) a visa for another country but wanted to see if Australia was a possibilty.
Do you have any recommendations for a migration agent who can give us a clear answer quite quickly? I've found that a lot of time the lawyers are just rehashing freely avaliable information albeit in a slightly clearer way but will give no guarantees that its worth pursing a visa attempt.

Try Paul Hand at SunCoast Migration. Excellent reputation, and posts on here sometimes.

You don't have to sign up for a agent to do the whole process, but you can specify that all you want is an initial consultation to point you the right way.

I'm too out of touch now to even hazard a guess as the best route for you!