From Critical Facilities Supervisor to Chief Engineer in Australia
A sideways move on the ladder.
Skills to build
What a Chief Engineer needs beyond a Critical Facilities Supervisor.
Commissioning
- Accept capacity in phases Leads others
- Check operational readiness at handover Leads others
- Work in a site that is part live and part under construction Leads others
- Run functional performance tests Independent
- Take part in integrated systems testing Independent
LV distribution
- AI load swings and how they are smoothed Leads others
- Trace the power path and its redundancy Leads others
Safe isolation
- Authorise isolations Up to Leads others
Power transfer and generation
- Coordinate load changes with the site plant or utility Leads others
- Prime and behind-the-meter power Leads others
Leadership
- Find root causes and learn from incidents Up to Leads others
Cooling plant
- Psychrometrics and the thermal envelope Leads others
MV switching
- Read MV systems and their protection Leads others
- Write and carry out a switching programme Independent, desirable
Monitoring and response
- Read trends and capacity Leads others
Procedures and documents
- Work within change management Up to Leads others
- Write and review a MOP Leads others
Liquid cooling
- Know who owns each part of the loop Leads others, desirable
- Fill, flush and vent a TCS loop Independent, desirable
- Liquid-cooled IT and its loops Independent, desirable
Licences it adds
- The licence of the state or territory where the site is · Preferred
- NSW Qualified supervisor certificate (electrical wiring work), NSW
- VIC Electrician’s licence (A Grade), Victoria
- QLD Electrical work licence (electrical mechanic), Queensland
- WA Electrician’s licence, Western Australia
- SA Electrical worker registration, South Australia
- TAS Electrical practitioner licence (electrician), Tasmania
- ACT Electrician licence (unrestricted), ACT
- NT Electrical work licence (unrestricted electrical mechanic), NT
Not legal advice: check with the regulator for your state.
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Sources and licences
- Critical Facilities reference framework © Facility Labs. (CC BY 4.0)
- Units of competency from training.gov.au, © Commonwealth of Australia, captured 2026.10. Kept as published. (Training package content, © Commonwealth of Australia: kept as published, no adapted copies)
- Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, OSCA – Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0, and its correspondence to ISCO-08. CC BY 4.0. (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International)