Australia has over 600,000 international students. They fill lecture theatres, share houses, and late-night shifts. They are a large and economically important group in Australia’s cities, yet their role in everyday work is often overlooked.
This is their data story.
International students face a unique triple pressure: they are legally capped on how much they can work, concentrated in cities with the highest rents in the country, and many rely on casual and part-time jobs, often in industries with high levels of casual employment. The data shows that for many, the numbers simply do not add up.
Because no freely downloadable public dataset directly links international student status to employment industry, this story does not claim that international students are employed in every industry shown. Instead, it compares international student concentration, industry employment patterns, wages and living-cost pressure to show where student life, casual work and financial stress are likely to overlap.
This story is aimed at readers of The Conversation, especially students, university staff, policymakers and people interested in migration, work and cost-of-living pressure. For students, the charts show how their experience fits into a wider national pattern. For policymakers and universities, the data highlights where student concentration, employment structures and rising costs overlap.
Australia’s international student population has grown strongly since 2019, with higher education and vocational training making up the largest groups.
Key finding: International students are concentrated in a few major education sectors, making them a visible and growing part of Australia’s education system.
Source: Department of Education, International Student Data, February 2026.
Over 600,000 international students studied in Australia in 2025 — a figure that has grown by more than 20% since 2019. These students are not passive recipients of education. The majority need to work. But the kind of work available to them is tightly constrained by their visa conditions.
International students are legally restricted to casual and part-time work. These are the industries where casual employment is highest — the same sectors students commonly seek work in.
Key finding: Large service industries create the kind of flexible, casual work students often rely on — even though this dataset does not identify student workers directly.
Source: ABS Characteristics of Employment, Australia, August 2024.
The industries where casual employment is highest — accommodation, food services, retail, arts — are sectors where students commonly seek work. Casual employment offers flexibility but comes with real costs: no sick leave, no job security, and wages that have not kept pace with what it actually costs to live in Australia’s major cities.
While rents in Melbourne have surged, the minimum casual wage has barely kept pace. For international students capped at 48 hours a fortnight, the gap is impossible.
Key finding: Rent has grown significantly faster than wages since 2019, compressing the financial buffer available to anyone working casual hours.
Source: ABS Consumer Price Index (2025); Fair Work Commission National Minimum Wage Order (2025).
Since 2019, Melbourne rents have risen more than 31% — while the casual minimum wage grew by just 17%. For a student working the maximum allowed hours, that gap is not an inconvenience. It is a growing financial pressure that compounds every semester.
International students are overwhelmingly concentrated in Victoria and NSW — the two states with the highest rent growth. This overlap highlights how student concentration and rent pressure can compound financial stress.
Key finding: Student concentration and rent pressure overlap most severely in Victoria and NSW — the two most expensive states for renters.
Source: Department of Education, International Student Data, February 2026. Author’s analysis.
Victoria and New South Wales together account for nearly two-thirds of all international student enrolments. They are also the states where rental growth has been most severe. Students follow universities and colleges to these cities. In doing so, many find themselves in the most expensive rental markets in the country, with legally capped earning capacity and limited financial buffer.
So what does this mean in practice? For a student in Melbourne, the numbers tell a stark story.
International students on a student visa can work a maximum of 48 hours per fortnight. Use the slider to see how many hours a week changes the financial gap between income and essential living costs in Melbourne.
Key finding: At maximum legal hours, a student’s weekly income barely covers essential costs — leaving almost no room for unexpected expenses.
Source: ABS Consumer Price Index (2025); Fair Work Commission (2025); Domain rental data (2025).
A Melbourne international student working the maximum legal 24 hours per week earns approximately $723 — before tax. Essential costs — rent, food, transport, utilities — consume around $480 of that. That leaves roughly $243 per week for everything else: textbooks, medical expenses, clothing, phone bills, and any unexpected cost.
There is no buffer. And if casual hours are cut — as they often are — the numbers go negative.
Australia has built significant parts of its service economy and university sector around a workforce that is legally constrained, economically vulnerable, and largely absent from policy conversations. The data does not prove exploitation. What it shows is simpler and harder to ignore: for many international students, the numbers do not add up.
Data note: Charts 2, 3, 4 and 5 use summary statistics drawn from ABS Characteristics of Employment (2024), ABS Consumer Price Index (2025), Department of Education enrolment data (2026), and Fair Work Commission National Minimum Wage Order (2025). Where raw microdata was unavailable, published aggregate figures were manually compiled. All sources are cited in the references.