The internal migration of Australians from metro to regional areas has received increasing attention since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although this has sometimes been characterised as an ‘exodus’ from Australian cities, the pandemic reflects more of an amplification of a well-established trend towards counter-urbanisation.

This first instalment of the Future of Work Lab’s Regional Migration Survey aims to better understand the migration patterns, motivations and experiences of internal migrants.

Key findings:

• People are predominantly settling in rural Victorian regions (49%), followed by regional cities (34%), and peri-urban regions (17%)
• The top regional destinations are the City of Greater Geelong (12%), Hepburn Shire (10%), with the Surf Coast, the City of Ballarat, and Greater Bendigo each attracting 8% of internal migrants
• 80% of people settled in regional Victorian locations that were within a 150km of their point of departure from Greater Melbourne