National Marine Jobs & Skills Survey

BIA launched the 2025 edition of the National Jobs & Skills Survey © Boating Industry Association

The BIA today launched the 2025 edition of the National Jobs & Skills Survey designed to capture essential value and demand data on marine jobs across the marine industry.

BIA CEO Andrew Fielding said this annual survey was directly linked to a key priority of the association which was to promote marine careers.

"We use the results to advocate to key stakeholders such as State and Federal Governments for improved outcomes for industry in marine jobs - both in trade and not trade skills - across Australia," Fielding said.

"In the recent past, the results of this survey have helped BIA to secure trades like boat building and shipwrights to be included in both the national skills priority and national apprenticeship priority lists which in turn enables employers and apprentices to receive additional financial support from the Federal Government.

"Promoting marine careers is a centre piece of our work which is to support our industry with access to appropriately trained and skilled workforce."

The annual BIA Industry Report puts the total number of people employed in the marine industry at more than 35,000 across more than 2000 businesses in Australia.

There is however and ongoing demand for trade and skills across almost every sector within the industry. This is highlighted by the number of marine occupations on the Australian Apprenticeships Priority List and also the Australian Jobs & Skills Occupation Shortage list.

"The demand for jobs and skills is very clear, and that is why BIA last year stepped up to lead on the Marine Jobs program for the wider marine industry in Australia," Fielding said.

"We now have a program to support industry from online recruitment to an extensive program encompassing career events, mentoring program, advocacy to governments, collaborations with training providers such as with TAFE and the Australian Institute of Engineering (AIE), and the roll out of our Marine Industry Academy beyond the Gold Coast."

All this work is underpinned by advocacy to governments and our annual survey helps to provide the data on value and demand across the industry.

All marine businesses across Australia in the recreational and light commercial sectors are invited to complete the survey which takes only a few minutes by going to www.surveymonkey.com/r/BIA_Marine_Industry_Skills_and_Trades_Survey_2025

The survey closes 5 March.

For information on Marine Jobs visit: www.marinejobs.org.au

For information on BIA visit: www.bia.org.au