Transitioning out of the ADF and trying to work out which employers genuinely value your service? You're asking the right question. Since the Veteran Employment Commitment launched, hundreds of Australian organisations have pledged to hire veterans — but a pledge on a website and a real pathway into a good job are two different things.
The employers worth your attention share a few markers: they're Veteran Employment Commitment signatories with named programmes (not just statements), they show up in the Prime Minister's National Veteran Employment Awards, and they already employ veterans in numbers — because the strongest signal that an employer values ex-ADF talent is the veterans already working there. The five below meet that standard, and all are hiring in 2026.
A note on how this list was built: it draws on the Prime Minister's National Veteran Employment Awards, Veteran Employment Commitment participation, and each organisation's published veteran workforce numbers and partnerships with Defence. The five span security, infrastructure, mining, and defence industry deliberately, because the best employer for you depends on whether you want continuity with Defence life, a complete change of scenery, or something in between.
Why: Wilson Security was named Large Employer of the Year at the 2025 Prime Minister's National Veteran Employment Awards — the top national recognition an Australian veteran employer can receive. The company actively recruits ex-ADF members and has built its veteran programme around retention and progression, not just recruitment.
Expect: Security operations, site and regional management, emergency response, and corporate roles. The work rewards exactly what the ADF built in you: situational awareness, calm decision-making, and leading small teams on shift. Veterans describe the culture as immediately familiar — clear procedures, real responsibility early.
- Programme: Dedicated veteran recruitment and support pathway
- Recognition: Large Employer of the Year, 2025 PM's National Veteran Employment Awards
- Benefits: Veteran support network, national roles, progression into operations management
Ventia
Why: Ventia delivers essential infrastructure services — including long-running support contracts on Defence bases across Australia — and employs hundreds of veterans across its workforce. Its dedicated veteran employment programme recognises ADF experience as directly relevant to the work, because much of the work happens on the estate you already know.
Expect: Facilities and asset management, base services, logistics, project management, and trades roles. If you want a transition with continuity — working on Defence sites, alongside other veterans, in a civilian role — Ventia is one of the most natural landings available.
- Programme: Ventia Veteran Employment Program
- Scale: Hundreds of veterans across a 16,000-strong workforce
- Benefits: Defence-site roles nationwide, veteran peer network, recognition of ADF quals and experience
Why: Downer has worked in the Australian defence sector for decades and is a Veteran Employment Commitment signatory with a workforce that includes over 1,200 veterans. The company treats ex-ADF hiring as core capability for its defence and infrastructure contracts, not a side programme.
Expect: Roles across rail, road, utilities, facilities management, and defence support services — engineering, project delivery, asset management, and operations. Your trade often transfers directly, and Downer's scale means genuine mobility between sectors once you're in.
- Programme: Veteran Employment Commitment signatory with dedicated defence-sector pathways
- Scale: 1,200+ veterans across the workforce
- Benefits: Trade recognition, national footprint, movement between defence and civil projects
BHP
Why: BHP runs a formal partnership with the Department of Defence to create pathways for transitioning ADF members and their partners, and supports reservists as a member of the ADF's Supportive Employer Program. Mining rewards the same things the ADF does: safety discipline, teamwork in tough environments, and process under pressure.
Expect: Maintenance, mobile equipment operation, autonomous operations monitoring, logistics, HR, and project management, with industry-leading training if you're changing direction entirely. FIFO rosters will feel structurally familiar — demanding, but with defined off-swings your family can plan around.
- Programme: BHP–Department of Defence partnership for transitioning members and partners
- Recognition: ADF Supportive Employer Program member
- Benefits: Paid training pathways, roles for partners of serving members, reservist-supportive policies
Why: As one of Australia's largest defence companies, Boeing Defence Australia recruits heavily from the ex-ADF community — people who've operated and maintained the platforms the company builds and sustains. Veterans make up a substantial share of its Australian workforce.
Expect: Aircraft and systems maintenance, training and simulation delivery, logistics, engineering, and programme management, often at or near Defence establishments in Queensland and beyond. Existing security clearances are genuinely valuable here, and your platform experience can move you up the shortlist fast.
- Programme: Dedicated ex-ADF recruitment across sustainment and training programmes
- Scale: One of Australia's largest defence-sector veteran employers
- Benefits: Clearance-valued roles, platform continuity, veteran networks on major sites
How to Stand Out
- Translate your experience. Write “maintenance supervisor leading a team of 10 across a $5M equipment fleet,” not your rank and ECN. If a civilian mate can't understand your resume, neither can the recruiter's software.
- Quantify it. Personnel, budgets, equipment, uptime, incident-free days. Numbers cross the civilian divide intact.
- Use the veteran pathway. Every employer above has one. Applying through the veteran programme puts your application in front of someone who knows what a JNCO actually does.
- Show the shape of your service. Postings from Townsville to Darwin, deployments across the region and beyond — that geography tells a story of adaptability that a two-page resume flattens. Find a way to let employers see it.
- Talk to veterans already inside. Every employer on this list has a veteran network, and ex-ADF members are famously generous with a coffee or a phone call for someone still in transition.
Before you start interviewing, consider creating a Veteran Waypoints journey — a cinematic video that maps every posting and deployment of your career as flight paths across a 3D globe. It comes with a QR code linking to your interactive journey page, which fits neatly on a resume or LinkedIn profile. When an interviewer asks about your background, you can show them your entire service — every base, every deployment — in under two minutes. It's not a hard requirement for any job on this list. It's just a memorable way to make sure the scale of what you've done doesn't get lost in translation.
Your service built skills these employers are actively competing for. Apply like you know that.