Hi Kev01,
Welcome to the forum.
Skills are assessed by the TRA (Trade Recognition Australia) and the website
workplace.gov.au - 1 Skills assessment for people intending to migrate to Australia
may be offer some help as to what they will be looking for with your skills.
I can't advise on the skills category since I'm not an agent.If you are in the UK it may be worth going to one of the emigration expos and asking that question there. I assume that none of the categories seem to fit.
If you check out the Sticky "Please read...." towards the top of the forum that has links to jobs, weather and links to all the states in Australia. That should give you an idea about where you want to move to.
For housing check out
Real Estate, Property, Land and Homes for Sale, lease and rent - realestate.com.au and
www.domain.com.au
The process depends on the visa type that you are applying for. Ours as a skilled independent took 2 years. If you check
www.austimeline.com.au then that has current timings for the different types of visas. It sounds like you may have an idea of which visa you will be going for. Make sure that you have enough points (if your visa requires it) since we had to apply before we were 40 since we wouldn't have enough points otherwise.
Research, research, research
Make sure you want to move and look at where you want to move to. Australia is BIG and the areas are very different.
Read everything you can, go to everything, get the magazines and newspapers that deal with emigration.
Hope that helps,
Karen