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APS Career Pathfinder

APS Career Pathfinder helps individuals plan their next step in the Australian Public Service, while supporting agencies to build a future-ready APS workforce.

With more than 20,000 active users over the past 12 months and around 215 typical APS roles to explore, this career pathway platform delivers meaningful impacts for individuals and provides significant insights into APS talent.

 

A photograph of two APS employees using the APS Career Pathfinder website.

Staff using APS Career Pathfinder.
Source: Australian Public Service Commission

Career Pathfinder fundamentally shifts the way the APS supports career development. It makes career pathways more visible, supports inclusion, demonstrates how a skills-based approach works in practice and breaks down agency barriers.

With a link to APS Jobs, learning recommendations, and the ability to explore roles based on skills, interests or market demand, Career Pathfinder is a complete career development solution.

Agencies can use the tool to:

  • analyse their skills profile
  • identify workforce capability gaps
  • guide internal mobility and succession planning
  • discover hidden talent.

With a strong focus on privacy, users can select which skills they want to show up in talent searches.

Several APS agencies, including Services Australia, Health, Disability and Ageing and Australian Border Force in Home Affairs are establishing a Career Pathfinder partition. This will allow them to leverage the platform’s core functionality while maintaining a degree of autonomy and customisation to meet the specific needs of their employees.

Non-APS agencies, including state governments, are preparing to adopt the platform.

The delivery model incorporates ongoing evaluation, with embedded analytics tracking usage, uptake, and behaviour trends. Future developments are scoped with stakeholders to meet user needs.

Career Pathfinder is a national asset built and owned by the APS, enabling long-term, systemic workforce transformation. It demonstrates a skills-based approach to workforce management, including by building project teams based on skill requirements versus job roles.

Career Pathfinder was developed by the Australian Public Service Commission, Services Australia and the Digital Transformation Agency. A flagship initiative of the Data, Digital and Cyber Workforce Plan, it focuses on data, digital, cyber, AI and workforce planning, but can support any area of capability.

See also in this report

Capability and leadership in the APS ꟷ Data, Digital and Cyber Workforce Plan 2025ꟷ30

Find out more

Australian Government (n.d) APS Career Pathfinder, APSDigital Profession website, accessed 14 July 2025.

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Acknowledgement of Country

The APSC acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.