Earning a six-figure salary in a job you love sounds like career success.

But Rachel Dudok grew up in Hong Kong with parents who were determined to see her go to university and become a doctor or lawyer.

Becoming an aircraft maintenance engineer with Qantas was not the path they had in mind for her.

She didn't even need a university degree to do it.

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"They are proud that I've made something of myself and that I am successful in my own right," Dudok said.

"I've got a rewarding career, I'm making good money, and I'm happy in my job. I'm contributing, I'm making a difference.

"That's what they wanted for me, it's just not the pathway that they would have wanted me to take."

Dudok said people were often surprised she achieved her trade through vocational education.

"They just can't comprehend the fact that it's a four-year apprenticeship and it's not actually a university degree in order to do a very technical, highly skilled job like aircraft maintenance," Dudok told 9news.com.au.

"They don't necessarily associate those highly skilled roles with a trade background."

Dudok later did diplomas in international business and leadership and management and is now the national technical training manager at mining and construction manufacturer Komatsu, where she says her trade background allows her to easily relate to both the technicians and corporate managers.

But despite her career success, she says she's never been invited back to her former private girls' school to speak to students or parents.

"Anyone who did go on to tertiary studies and even had a minor award or achievement, they do like to push that in their newsletters and get them back to speak to kids at career days."

This lingering perception that TAFE or vocational education is a second option to the first choice of university is holding kids back, according to an expert on the sector.

National Skills Week chair and SkillsOne CEO Brian Wexham said parents have been led to believe a university education will automatically mean a better outcome for their child but that "nothing could be further from the truth".

He said schools often held up their percentage of graduates that had qualified for university in an appeal to parents that theirs was a quality school.

"It's not actually very meaningful, but it reinforces that perception," he said.

"It's an issue we've been dealing with for 10 years.

"It never ceases to amaze me that when you are actually able to talk to parents one-on-one and you explain to them the options and then you produce someone who, say, started his own business after doing VET education and he's happy and he's doing really well, and they look almost amazed."

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