Miner
What the work is
Operates plant to excavate, load and transport coal, ore, rock and other minerals in an underground or open-cut mine.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Operates mining equipment to excavate coal, ore, rock and other minerals
- Loads materials onto trucks or conveyors for transportation
- Inspects equipment and performs routine maintenance and repairs
- Follows mining plans and procedures to extract minerals from the earth
- Assists in the installation and maintenance of underground support systems
- Collects and analyses samples to determine the quality and composition of minerals
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in an open-cut mine on a fictional inland plain, with haul trucks, drill rigs and a blast crew. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- The sun comes up over the pit and a long line of trucks is already moving ore
- A blast goes exactly to plan and the crew stands down knowing everyone was clear
- A tough shift that ends with a full target and a team that has each other's backs
Hard days
- Weeks on a roster away from home, living in a camp, with dust in everything
- Night shifts when the body wants to sleep and the machine needs all of your attention
- A delay to the schedule that everyone upstairs wants fixed by tomorrow
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 732331, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.