Working overseas before applying for citizenship

[DWallen]

I work in a specialist role in IT that is very in demand in the UK, USA, etc., but not in Australia.

I have 2.5 years of residency, have PR, but currently have very unpredictable employment in Australia. I may well have to return to London (for 6 months) where I can get a job easily purely for financial reasons - I don't have enough savings to last 1.5 years in Oz! However, I understand that the periods of time spent overseas, and purpose of visits overseas, are examined when a citizenship application is submitted.

This does worry me, though. I don't want to be refused citizenship because I've had to work overseas while on PR and in the run-up to applying for citizenship.

Has anyone else found themselves in this situation? Or heard of anyone in this situation?

Thanks

[DWallen]

The key bit from the Dept of Home Affairs website is when assessing the citizenship application they look at "your travel into and out of Australia, your reason for travel, the number of times you travelled into and out of Australia, and how long you were in each place"

[Ausvisitor]

The rules are pretty simple you need to spend at least 3 years in Australia (that's actually 3 X 365 days) in 4 years to be eligible to apply.

You can therefore spend a year outside of AUS - except for the 365 days preceding the application when the limit is 3 months (I believe).

So if you do need to spend 6 months overseas do it quick before if nullifies your ability to apply as quickly as possible

That said if Australia does not have a need for you skillset and it's going to be difficult to work here why do you want to be here?

What specialism are you in? As I find it's the opposite usually, skills that were once in demand in UK/USA are now hot here but those in demand over there are also in demand here to