Australia’s skilled migration programme encourages discretionary inward migration to meet internal skill shortages especially in regional areas. But the literature on skilled migration largely tells a story of male migration; ‘women (dis)appear’ or they are relegated to the family reunion flow (Kofman & Raghuram, 2005:149). The work and learning aspirations, needs and outcomes for migrant women, especially secondary migrants are under-recognised in skilled migration policies and practices (Curran et al. 2006; McCall, 2000). Understandings of the experience of highly skilled female secondary migrants are underdeveloped, especially in the Australian context where the skills of migrants, often women, are underutilised (Colic-Peisker, 2011; Devos, 2011). This paper addresses these concerns by investigating migratory trajectories into life in regional Australia using a mainly qualitative narrative approach. The findings of this project funded by the National Council for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) highlight the tension between a skilled migration policy predicated on individual discretionary migration and the experiences of many migrants who engage in these transitions, not just as individuals, but through decision making within households. Migration policy has ‘blind-spots’. For many, the transition is risky and affected by the different migratory networks people engage with, intersected by gender, race and class.