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Categories of employment

Specialist/professional employmentASIO using technology

ASIO has specialist positions covering a range of disciplines. These include:

Staff in these areas usually require specific skills/qualifications and relevant work experience. The positions are advertised on an 'as required' basis.


Administrative staff
Administrative staff work in areas such as Finance, Personnel, Information Management, Recruitment or Staff Development. They are involved in the development of new policies, the training of other staff or administrative work such as the processing of entitlements in the personnel or finance areas. Salaries in the administrative stream range from around $36,773 to $74,717 depending on the level of the positions, qualifications and experience required. Details are provided in the relevant advertisements.


Technical staff
Technical staff work in areas such as the preparation, installation and maintenance of electronic or telecommunications equipment, the construction and testing of electronics equipment and/or the design of electronics equipment. Salaries in the technical stream range from around $50,764 to $107,243 depending on the level of the position, qualifications and experience required.


Engineering staff
Engineering staff are involved in the design and development of advanced telecommunications, computer or electronics equipment which is employed to collect intelligence. Advanced design, development and project management skills and experience in one or more of the following disciplines are required:

  • micro-electronics
  • radio frequency
  • telecommunications
  • information technology
  • electronics manufacture

ASIO also employs engineers in its protective security area where they undertake testing and evaluation of protective security equipment, development of Commonwealth protective security standards and policy and provide risk management and protective security consultancy services to clients. The full range of engineering skills may be drawn on for this work.

Salaries in the engineering stream range from around $50,764 to $108,946 depending on the level of the position, qualifications and experience required.


Information technology staff
Information technology staff are divided into four basic work groups. Staff are generally recruited directly into one of these groups, though some internal transfers do occur to suit personal and/or organisational needs. The groups are as follows:

  • The computer applications group develops and maintains in-house applications. It also assists with the specification and installation of vendor supplied applications as well as providing first line maintenance for these products.
  • The computer systems group installs and maintains the midrange and other servers, as well as the peripheral equipment associated with these - like disk and tape drives etc. This group also looks after the system software and layered products as well as the desktop/client equipment though much of this effort beyond first line maintenance has been diverted to the vendor from which that equipment is now leased.
  • The network management services group designs and maintains the data communication equipment and services used within Australia. Some components of this work, in particular the wiring, are outsourced but with local oversighting of standards.
  • The systems education and training group's primary role is to operate the Help Desk, with the design and delivery of IT training as a secondary role and limited mainly to in-house developed and layered software. Training in commercial application packages is usually outsourced to the relevant vendor. This group operates with a mixture of IT and non IT staff.

Staff required to work in the IT security domain are hand picked from the four groups as required.

Salaries in the IT field range from around $50,764 to $107,243 depending on the level of the position, qualifications and experience required.


Professional and trade staff
ASIO employs staff in a wide range of professional and trade activities including:

  • legal advisers
  • psychologists
  • librarians
  • editors
  • auditors
  • accountants
  • statisticians
  • printers
  • electricians

Salary will be dependent on qualifications and experience.