Hair and Beauty Award Pay Rates 2026-27: Every Level

Hairdressing is covered by the Hair and Beauty Industry Award 2020 (MA000005), which sets 6 classifications rather than a single trade rate. They run from $27.81 an hour, $1,056.80 a week full-time, at the Hair and beauty employee level 1 level, to $32.00 an hour, $1,215.90 a week, at the Hair and beauty employee level 6 level, from 1 July 2026. Casual rates run from $34.76 to $40.00 an hour. All 6 are in the table above, each with its weekly rate, its hourly rate, the award's own casual rate and take-home pay after tax.

Only to some salons, and this is the one state question that changes the answer. The award itself does not vary by state: it is a modern award made under the federal Fair Work Act, and its rates are identical in every state and territory. What differs in Western Australia is coverage. Western Australia has kept its own industrial relations system, and modern awards reach only national system employers, which for a private business generally means an incorporated one. A salon that is not a constitutional corporation, a sole trader or a partnership for instance, can therefore sit outside MA000005 entirely and be covered by a Western Australian state award for hair and beauty work instead. This page publishes no state rate, because we hold no verified primary source for one and will not copy a figure from a third party. To settle it, start with the employer's legal structure, then take the rate from the instrument that actually covers it: this award for a national system employer, the Western Australian state system for one that is not.

Yes. The award prints one ladder covering both, running from Hair and beauty employee level 1 to Hair and beauty employee level 6, so there is no separate hairdressing scale and no separate beauty scale to compare. The Hair and beauty employee level 3 level is $29.45 an hour, for instance, whichever side of the trade the work sits on. The level sets the rate, and the award sets the level by the work done and the qualification held.

That is decided by the classification definitions in the award, which this page does not publish. They turn on the work actually performed and the qualification held rather than on a job title or a years-of-service count, so two people with the same title in two salons are not automatically on the same level. Read the definition in the award text first, then read the rate for that level off the table above. If a payslip sits below the rate for the level the work matches, the award rate is a legal minimum rather than an opening offer.

The award publishes a casual hourly rate against every one of its 6 levels, from $34.76 an hour at the Hair and beauty employee level 1 level to $40.00 an hour at the Hair and beauty employee level 6 level. Each includes the 25% casual loading, and each is the award's own published figure rather than our multiplication of the base rate, because the award rounds differently from a calculator. The loading is paid instead of annual leave and paid personal leave, not on top of them.

Award rates change from the first full pay period on or after 1 July each year, following the Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review. The rates on this page take effect from 1 July 2026 and were read from the award consolidated to 1 July 2026, determinations PR799280, PR799286, PR799444.