Between late May and late July 2026, we tracked 125 graduate roles, internships and vacationer programs across Australia and shared every one with international students through our weekly job alerts. This is what the data says about who is actually hiring.
92 companies. Six industries. One city doing more than half the work. Here is the breakdown, and where it says to point your applications.
What industries are hiring international students in Australia?
Technology led every other field. Of the 125 roles, 37 were in tech, from Atlassian and TikTok to Amazon, Stripe, Optiver and Cloudflare, plus structured graduate tech programs at Westpac, DXC, Cuscal and IAG. Add the 22 data and analytics roles, and nearly half of everything open sat in tech and data-adjacent fields. If you are studying computer science, software or data, the market is tilted in your favour right now.
Accounting (21) and finance (20) were close behind, driven by the Big 4 and the investment banks. Data and analytics roles came from names like BlackRock, Challenger, JANA and Jefferies. Marketing (15) and consulting (10) had the fewest openings, spread across firms like IBM, ServiceNow, BMW and Partners in Performance. If that is your field, expect fewer roles and more applicants per role, so your targeting has to be sharper.
Are there more internships or graduate programs?
Internships and vacationer programs outnumbered full graduate programs by nearly two to one: 80 versus 42. That split matters more for international students than almost any other number here.
Internships and vacationer roles are the side door. They are shorter, they fit a 485 visa timeline, and they are how most graduate offers are actually won. Firms convert their interns before they ever open the graduate round to the public. If you are only chasing the big-name graduate programs, you are ignoring two thirds of the market.
Which cities have the most roles?
Sydney had more than half of everything: 72 of 125 roles. Melbourne had 37. Brisbane had 19. Perth had one.
If you can be flexible, Sydney is where the volume is, especially in finance and tech. If you are locked to a city outside Sydney and Melbourne, widen your net early, because the role count drops off a cliff after the top two.
When did these roles open?
The roles clustered between late May and late July, which is the mid-year window when summer internships and vacationer programs open for a November to February placement. That timing repeats every year. Full graduate programs for the following year tend to open between February and April, and the internships that feed those programs open around the middle of the year.
The takeaway is simple. If you only start looking in the new year, you have already missed most of the intern intakes that lead to graduate offers. The students who do best line up applications in the months before a window opens, not after it closes.
Which companies hired the most?
Amazon posted more roles than any other single employer (8), followed by TikTok (6) and EY (5). Macquarie, KPMG and ANZ each ran three.
Across all 92 companies, the pattern was consistent: global tech firms, the Big 4 (KPMG, EY, PwC, Deloitte), the investment banks (UBS, Macquarie, RBC, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan), and a long tail of mid-tier firms like BDO, William Buck and Forvis Mazars. These are the employers opening doors to international students right now, not five years ago.
What this tells you to do
Three things. Point your applications where the volume is: tech, data and accounting. Do not skip internships and vacationer programs, because they are the highest-conversion entry point on a 485. And if you can be in Sydney, be in Sydney.
One caveat worth 30 seconds per ad: a small number of employers, mostly government and defence, still require citizenship or permanent residency. Check the work-rights line before you invest an hour in an application.
We run this review every quarter, so the numbers move as new roles open. What does not move is the hard part: turning an open role into an offer when thousands of people are applying. Headstart mentors did exactly that on student and graduate visas within the last few years. Book a free call to work out which of these roles are worth your time. Real conversation, no commitment.
For what actually separates the international students who get hired from the ones who do not, read: Is the Australian Graduate Job Market Actually Getting Harder?
