We’ve comprised a list of 50+ work from home jobs that don’t suck. We’ve put together all the best jobs for Australian stay at home mums and rated them by awesomeness and suckiness so you can choose a stay at home career that suits your baby, your budget and your sanity. MLM is not your only option, there’s a whole world of choices out there that let you work at home and raise your bubba. Let’s talk work from home admin jobs.
See also:
- Working in a “real job” from home – READ THIS FIRST!
- Work at home careers – consulting, training and change management jobs
- Work from home tech jobs
- Work from home in health and beauty
- Take your baby to work jobs
- Stay at home with a blog or shop
How we’ve assessed these stay at home jobs
We’ve given every stay at home job opportunity some rankings to help you decide if it’s really for you and if it’s going to meet your family’s needs. Here’s how we’ve rated it:
- Set up costs
- Set up time
- Earning potential
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service)
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it)
- Other issues
Where to find your first admin clients:
Very poorly paid work is available pretty much immediately on sites like Upwork, Freelancer and Ozlance. These can be terrible jobs that offer $5 an hour (or even less!) or you can find Australian clients who are willing to spend more on you, once you do a “trial job” first. Look for gigs that ask specifically for a native speaker who is Australian based and mention words like “quality”.
You can also tap your own personal network – Facebook groups often have people asking for VA recommendations. You can ask family and friends to keep you in mind if they need anything done and you can register yourself on AirTasker to get some practice in. Use these early, poorly paid jobs to get your systems in place and assess how much of your time will be “unpaid hours”.
Work from home as a Virtual Assistant – 7/10
You’ll need to be pretty versatile – a bit of an admin whiz and ready to learn to earn. Virtual assistants tend to handle overflow admin work at an hourly rate (from $20 – $75 per hour depending on the client and the work).
- Set up costs – Minimal
- Set up time – Minimal
- Earning potential – Moderate
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – High, 10,000+ searches per month
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) – High
- Other issues – This is an industry that is plagued by cheap overseas workers. To find clients willing to pay Australian wages, you’ll need to focus on your understanding of English (check your grammar carefully!) and your knowledge of Australian business practices. People seeking Virtual Assistants use Google to find them. You will need a proper website and SEO to really make a go of this business – so plan to re-invest a lot of your profits back into the business.
Work from home as a Bookkeeper – 8/10
You’ll need to know all the leading bookkeeping software, have a qualification and a proven track record for reliability. Earning potential is good (from $30 – $90 per hour depending on the client and the work).
- Set up costs – Minimal
- Set up time – Minimal
- Earning potential – Good
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – High, 10,000+ searches per month
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) – High
- Other issues – You will need to focus on being trustworthy. One of the biggest barriers for bookkeeping and finance freelancers is that people inherently don’t trust freelancers! You may need to allocate some time to pounding the pavement and doing face to face meetings with potential clients to build up that trust.
Data Entry jobs from home – 5/10
Dull, repetitive data entry work… this is where a business outsources the admin work none of their team want to do. It’s the lower end of admin work from home so you can expect lower wages. This may mean $15 – $30 per hour! It does however tend to supply you with a LOT of hours and data entry takes many forms, from updating contact lists to document population to web research so there’s a lot of potential to get high volume work. This works well if you plan to outsource in the future.
- Set up costs – Minimal
- Set up time – Minimal
- Earning potential – Low to moderate
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – Medium, 5000+ searches per month
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) – High
- Other issues – The first port of call for data entry is usually an overseas contractor working for $5 an hour. Because there’s generally a lot of copy and pasting or at worst filling in Excel fields, the perception is that it can be done in India or the Philippines very cheaply. That makes this a more competitive field, with less financial reward than more skilled admin jobs.
Niche Admin work at home jobs – 8/10
Know everything there is to know about Salesforce? HR software? Drupal? If your former life included working on a leading but complex software program, you can make very good money doing support from home. There aren’t as many jobs around but once you get a few clients, you’re pretty much set for life. Expect $40 – $100 per hour depending on your skills and the demand for help with the particular program.
- Set up costs – Minimal
- Set up time – Medium (finding clients can be trickier)
- Earning potential – Moderate to high
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – Low
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) – Medium
- Other issues – Finding the right clients is going to be your biggest challenge. Start with Upwork but let the clients know that once you’ve proven your worth, you’ll want to be paid your worth.
Transcription work at home jobs – 6/10
This is an emerging virtual career (and therefore good to jump on!) With the demand for content every growing, and audio technologies part of everyday life, transcription and editing are growing in popularity. Let’s face it, transcription software is still cringingly bad! There’s room for whiz transcribers, with excellent spelling and grammar skills and basic editing skills. Unfortunately, this is another job that is targeted by cheap and cheerful foreign freelancers so your earning potential is similar to that of data entry work.
- Set up costs – Minimal (you may need “dictaphone equipment depending on the clients you work with)
- Set up time – Medium (finding clients can be trickier)
- Earning potential – Low to moderate
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – Low and growing
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) – Medium
- Other issues – Dictation services earn more money if there’s another skill there – if you have experience in the medical or legal industries, you may be able to make some better money specialising in this area.
Virtual Customer Service – 6/10
Taking calls and answering emails on behalf of a client from home… it means you will likely need to work to set hours which can be impossible with a baby. Generally these jobs pay $25 – $35 an hour and you’ll need great communication (both written and verbal) skills. If you’re providing “call centre” style services you may need additional phone lines and equipment at home but mostly virtual customer service is about answering customer emails or doing live chat support on websites.
- Set up costs – Minimal
- Set up time – Medium (finding clients can be trickier)
- Earning potential – Low to moderate
- Demand (based on number of customers searching for this service) – Low to medium
- Competition (based on the number of Australian mums already doing it) Medium
- Other issues – There’s a definite backlash against foreign call centres so an Aussie on the phone or an Aussie returning your emails is a great selling point! This can be the way to get your foot in the door for businesses too small or too service oriented to own a foreign call centre set up.
Working from home jobs in Australia
Australia has a booming telecommuting market for administrative tasks. It’s growing and there’s nothing like a gigantic country with high employee set up costs and massive tax rates to turn savvy business owners towards hiring freelance admin workers. Seeking work from home jobs isn’t easy so you will likely need to set yourself up a little business. Give yourself lead time and know that the first year is never the most profitable year! Make sure your partner understands this too – there’s nothing worse than working from home with a partner who doesn’t understand or respect what you do!
