Goldfinger, as a very rough rule of thumb, experience requirements in Oz for each 'level' up the career ladder are one or two orders of magnitude higher than in the UK.
Some overall & very general comparisons in the occupational environment:
UK: Learning to fly is hideously expensive compared to median income/cost of living. For the population very few people tend to learn to fly, let alone get a professional licence
Very little general aviation employment. Not much use of GA. I suspect flying training at clubs might be the major use. Apart from training not much in the way of piston engine charter/air taxi/aerial work.
Large & dense population suports lots of jet & TP operators (read: airlines)
Oz: Learning to fly is relatively affordable compared to median income. Lots of people learn to fly.
Lots of use of GA: Aerial ag. (an whole industry/specialist field in itself), lots of flying schools (small & large businesses as well clubs), quite a lot of piston engine air taxi/charter/aerial work eg tourist flights, outback transport, air taxi to/from major centres, even regular public transport connecting small towns.
Small population, HUGE distances (Sydney-Perth is similar to London-Moscow), supports very few turbine airlines. The entire population of Oz is roughly the same as what's in the greater London area on a weekday.
End result:
UK: An airline expectation & hiring system that is geared to taking relatively inexperienced (as low as ~300 hrs) pilots directly onto TP & jets, in some cases straight out of an airline sponsored course.
Oz: An airline expectation & hiring system that is geared to taking experienced pilots who have usually moved up & through the industry levels. Common career paths:
Gain CPL then:
1. Go bush. Get poorly paid job with ~300 hrs experience, probably part time/casual flying a C182/206/210 into properties, small towns/abo. communities & tourist joyflights. Do an instrument rating. At around 800-1000 hrs get onto twins eg Baron, C310, possibly PA31 or C402. If you're very, very lucky your SE job might have been with a company that also has twins so eventually the multi flying will come your way. More often you'll be hopping jobs to try to score a twin seat. You could be lucky & get a job back in the city instead if the middle of nowhere.
At ~2000-3000 hrs total/ 1000-1500 multi, you'll be in a position where applying to a company that operates turbines is feasable. Note: Qantas is possible but since they're considered to be the pinacle & can't employ everyone there's an awfully lot of pilots who will never work for them.
2. Get an instructor rating. Get a part time/casual job instructing for a club/small school. Just about all of them will also do some sort of air taxi/charter. Move up through the instructor levels, eventually getting onto twins. Somewhere around ~1000-1500 hrs TT you could cross into the twin world of scenario 1. The instructor rating is beneficial career-wise for smaller organisations when it comes to their check & training requirements.
Otherwise stay instructing & doing charter.
3. Get a Low level endorsement & ag. rating. Get a job for a year or so driving the loading vehicle. Eventually be allowed to ferry the a/c & maybe a couple of easy ag. tasks for the company. As experience builds & the company places more trust in you you'll become one of the 'full timers' (this is seasonal work). Move onto the large turbine ag. aircraft along with the night time crop spraying. Get paid quite a lot but almost never leads into airline work.
This is all very broad brush. There are numerous exceptions & variations in each individual's career.
Converting to an Oz CPL is relatively straight forward. Providing you hold an ICAO equivalent licence (eg UK, JAR, FAA etc) then you'll need to:
1. Do an Oz Cl.1 medical. Nothing like the UK carry on. Book it with any Dr. authorised to do aviation medicals. You might have to have an audiogram/ECG/blood test.
NOTE: You don't need the Cl. 1 medical for the training & conversion. A Cl. 2 will suffice but why bother converting if you can't pass the medical that would let you work?
2. Do the 'Overseas Conversion Exam' for the level of licence you want (PPL, CPL, ATPL). Note that you must hold at least the equivalent foreign licence.
3. Approach any flying school/aero club that can do CPL training (basically ALL of them) (presuming it's a professional licence you want. They'll do an assessment flight from which you'll either be recommended to do the flight test or have a course tailored to make up any problems.
4. Do the CPL flight test. This can be with any Authorised Testing Officer (ATO) who can do CPL tests. It doesn't have to be with the authority. Your experience on various types from overseas will normally be credited onto your new Oz licence.
5. Repeat the assesment/recommendation/flight test stuff for an IR. You may have to do the IR theory exam.
6. If you're converting an ATPL and have the necessary hours then apply for the ATPL.
NOTE: The conversion & IR exams are each single exams, multi choice. Conversion exams focus mainly on Air Law.