Pay Rates by Occupation in Australia
Most Australian jobs have a legal pay floor. It is set by a modern award, it is national, and an employer cannot lawfully pay below it. Each page here publishes that floor for one occupation, read from the award text, with what it leaves after income tax and the Medicare levy.
What these pages publish
The award minimum for each occupation: the lowest hourly and weekly rate that is lawful for each classification, the casual rate with its loading, and the take-home figure after tax. They are not average salaries, median salaries or advertised pay. A market average tells you what other people are being paid; the award floor tells you what you are owed.
Occupations covered so far.
The list is short on purpose. An occupation appears here once its award rates have been read from the award text and checked, not before, because a rate published from a secondary source is how three financial years of figures end up on one search results page.
Truck Driver Pay Rates
Road Transport and Distribution Award, MA000038. Long distance work sits under MA000039, which pays by the kilometre and is not published here.
Hairdresser Pay Rate
Hair and Beauty Industry Award, MA000005. A salon that is not a constitutional corporation may sit under the Western Australian state system instead.
Disability Support Worker Pay Rate
SCHADS Award, MA000100. Two scales cover this work, and which one applies depends on whether the support is delivered in the client’s own home.
Aged Care Worker Pay Rate
SCHADS Award, MA000100, home care scale. Residential aged care sits under a different award, which this site does not publish yet.
Enrolled Nurse Pay Rate
Nurses Award, MA000034. Five pay points, plus a separate and higher aged care classification.
Retail Assistant Pay Rate
General Retail Industry Award, MA000004. Retail Employee Levels 1 to 3, the assistant-level classifications.
Chef Pay Rate
Hospitality Industry (General) Award, MA000009. Five cook grades, split by whether the cook holds a trade qualification.
Early Childhood Educator Pay Rate
Children’s Services Award, MA000120. A degree-qualified teacher is covered by MA000077 instead, which is a separate scale and is not published here.
Cleaner Pay Rate
Cleaning Services Award, MA000022. Three levels, and the award floor for employing a cleaner is a different number from the price a cleaning business quotes.
Security Guard Pay Rate
Security Services Industry Award, MA000016. Five security officer levels. Published summaries of this award disagree about how many levels it has.
Kitchen Hand Pay Rate
Restaurant Industry Award, MA000119, and the Hospitality Industry (General) Award, MA000009. Which one covers you depends on the venue, and both are shown.
How a job gets a legal floor.
A modern award is an industry or occupation-wide minimum made by the Fair Work Commission. It sets the lowest lawful rate for each classification in that industry, and it also fixes casual loading, penalty rates, overtime and allowances. Awards are national instruments, so the same rate applies in every state and territory.
Which award covers you follows the industry your employer operates in, and then your classification inside that award follows the work you actually do: the qualification it calls for, how much direction you work under, and whether you supervise anyone. Your job title has no legal weight in that decision.
Above the award sit two things that can raise the rate. An enterprise agreement, registered for a particular employer, displaces the award where it applies. An individual contract can pay more than the award but never less. Below the award is nothing: it is the floor.
Rates change from the first full pay period on or after 1 July each year, following the Annual Wage Review, and individual determinations can vary a rate part-way through a year. That is why every table on these pages carries an effective date and the determination it came from.
If your occupation is not listed.
Start from the award rather than the job title. Every award published on this site lists all of its classifications, so if you can identify your award you can usually find your own rate in it. The Award Pay Rates page lists the awards covered here and explains how classification levels and pay points work.
Some occupations have no useful award answer at all. Public sector teachers, police, paramedics and most public hospital nursing are covered by state enterprise agreements that differ in every state and are renegotiated on their own cycles. Publishing a single national figure for those roles would be inventing one, so this site does not.
Work out what your rate leaves you with.
Enter an hourly rate and your hours to see take-home pay after income tax and the Medicare levy, for any of the occupations above.
Open the pay calculator