Benefits for Service Professionals

Aussies and Brits have travelled to each other's shores for years. This exchange of talent, ingenuity and ambition has enriched all sectors of both our economies.

The Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement (A-UKFTA) will turbocharge that tradition.

The A-UKFTA includes reciprocal commitments on temporary entry of skilled personnel that will support the bilateral advancement of professional skills, commercial interests and modern value chains.

The UK has guaranteed access for managers and specialists across all sectors to undertake three-year intra-corporate transfers to the UK, and for graduate trainees to have one-year transfers.

Australians entering the UK as Contractual Service Suppliers and Independent Professionals will have the same access as European Union nationals. This will provide new opportunities for our service suppliers to work in the UK on contracts for up to a year.

Australian professional service exporters are important contributors to the Australian economy, with key exports including world-class legal, accounting, engineering, architecture, surveying and urban planning and research and development services.

Key outcomes

The A-UKFTA will support the bilateral advancement of professional skills, commercial interests and modern value chains. Australian professionals will benefit from provisions to support mutual recognition of qualifications and greater certainty as they enter the UK labour market.

Key outcomes include:

• support for recognition of professional qualifications between Australia and the UK and increased collaboration between UK and Australian accreditation and regulatory bodies
• guarantees that Australian lawyers can advise clients and provide arbitration, mediation and conciliation services in the UK using their original qualifications and title, as well as provisions to establish and drive collaboration between regulators to address remaining barriers to practicing as a local lawyer
• non-discrimination provisions to ensure the UK cannot discriminate in favour of its own service suppliers
• futureproofing to ensure that if the UK provides more generous services market access for other countries, this will be extended to Australia
• the ability for Australians on temporary visas as intra-corporate transferees to bring their dependants to the UK and obtain work rights for their partners
• within two years Australians under the age of 35 will be eligible to participate in the Working Holiday Maker Program or Youth Mobility Scheme, and with possible stays extended from two to three years
• Australian suppliers of all sizes, including SMEs and Indigenous-owned businesses, will have the guaranteed right to bid for a wide variety of UK government goods, services and construction contracts, in a procurement market worth an estimated half-a-trillion dollars annually.