17/09/2026
A brief summary of the current EOIs for popular occupations
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September is already halfway over, and the next round of 189 visa invitations is drawing ever closer.
According to currently available information, the next round of 189 visa invitations is expected to take place before September 30th. For those already waiting for invitations in the EOI pool, the most important data to watch now is: how many applicants have accumulated for their occupation and score range?
We've compiled the latest EOI data from the end of August, focusing on 11 popular occupations/occupation groups, including early childhood educators, secondary school teachers, registered nurses, social workers, construction project managers, civil engineering technicians, carpenters, and tile setters. A single table clearly shows the number of EOIs for 65, 70, 75, and 80 points.
1) End-of-August EOI Score Range Data
a) Nurses and Early Childhood Educators: The Pool Remains Large
Among the popular occupations, nurses and early childhood educators still have a significant number of EOIs.
Registered nurses have over 3800 EOIs in the 70 and 75 point ranges, and over 1200 in the 80 point range.
The distribution of EOIs in early childhood education is more even, with a large number of EOIs in each score range from 65 to 85.
Therefore, for these popular professions, simply reaching the 65-point threshold and actual competitiveness are two completely different concepts.
b) Even within the teaching profession, the differences are significant. The number of EOIs for secondary school teachers is significantly lower than that for early childhood educators.
The number of EOIs in the 65-75 point range is around 600, while the number drops rapidly after reaching 80 points.
This is why when looking at EOI data, one cannot only look at broad categories like "teacher," "medical," or "construction." The crowding level in the pool can vary greatly depending on the specific profession.
c) The score structure for blue-collar professions is completely different. Carpenters currently primarily have scores of 65 and 70.
At the end of August, there were approximately 490 carpenters in the 65-point range and about 200 in the 70-point range; the number drops significantly after reaching 75 points.
The pool for tile workers is even smaller, with about 75 people in the 65-point range and about 35 in the 70-point range.
For example, for painters, the total number of publicly available precise EOIs exceeded 1,000 by the end of August, with scores of 65 to 75 points still being the most concentrated range. Therefore, it's not that blue-collar workers are "unemployed"; the competition gap between different occupations is actually quite large.
d) Another change to note:
i) The pool is constantly changing, and the number of EOIs is not fixed.
For example, for carpenters, there were only 304 publicly available precise EOIs at the end of July, which increased to 787 by the end of August.
ii) There was an increase for Painters from 999 at the end of July to 1,062 by the end of August.
iii) Some changes come from new EOIs entering the pool, and may also be affected by factors such as previous invitations and EOI updates. Therefore, what seemed like a "small pool for a certain occupation" a few months ago may not be the same now.
e) How should you interpret the number of people in the EOI pool?
This data is more suitable for judging: what kind of competitive environment you are in based on your current score range.
However, one thing to note is: the number of people in the EOI pool is not equal to the actual number of people in the 189 application queue, and you cannot directly use the number of people in the pool to predict the score required for the next round of 189 invitations.
The EOI pool also includes applicants with different visa intentions and statuses, and some data statistics may be based on occupation groups rather than single occupations. Therefore, it is more like a "thermometer," which can help determine how popular a certain occupation is and which score range has a significant backlog.