Apprentice Electrician Wages 2026-27, First Year to Fourth

The junior scale in clause 16.4(a)(ii) runs 50%, 60%, 70%, 82% of the Electrical worker grade 5 rate of $1,119.10 a week, and 55%, 65%, 70%, 82% for an apprentice who has finished Year 12. The adult scale in clause 16.4(b)(v) is a fixed rate for each year. Each cell shows the hourly rate, the weekly rate for 38 ordinary hours, and what that week leaves after tax.

Clause 16.4(a)(iv) builds an apprentice’s weekly rate from four parts: the percentage of the Electrical worker grade 5 rate, the full tool allowance of $22.31 a week (clause 18.3(g)), and the year’s percentage of the electrician’s licence allowance ($40.29, clause 18.3(b)) and the industry allowance ($41.41, clause 18.3(a)). In the first year those allowances add $63.17 a week, which is why a first year electrical apprentice is on $622.72 while 50% of the same trade rate alone is $559.55.

An adult apprentice gets 80% of the licence and industry allowances in the first year and 87% in each later year, under clause 16.4(b)(vi). The licence share is part of every apprentice’s rate whether or not the apprentice holds any licence: the award adds it by formula, and the pay guide lists it as already included.

All three allowances count for all purposes. They are included when overtime, paid leave, annual leave loading, public holiday pay and pay on termination are worked out, so an apprentice’s overtime is paid on $622.72 a week, not on the minimum rate alone. The same all-purpose rate is the base for the weekend and public holiday loadings set out on Penalty Rates.

When an employer has an apprentice start or finish on a job site rather than at the workshop or depot, clause 18.6 adds two daily allowances that are not in the rates above. The fares allowance is paid in full: $28.26 a day for a site up to 50 kilometres from the depot, or $5.07 a day where the employer offers free transport (clause 18.6(d)(iii)). The travel time allowance of $8.69 a day (clause 18.6(c)) is paid at the apprentice’s percentage for the year, which the table sets out. A site further than 50 kilometres away also earns paid travelling time for the extra distance.

Neither allowance applies on a day that starts and finishes at the depot, and neither counts toward overtime, leave or public holiday pay. A first year apprentice sent to a site each day with no transport offered gets $32.61 a day on top of the weekly rate, or $163.05 over a five-day week, before tax.

A full-time apprentice on the first year rate earns $32,381 over a year and keeps about $29,817 of it. The figures below are for an Australian resident for tax purposes, working the full year with no study loan and no Medicare levy surcharge, and they exclude the travel and fares allowances above. Superannuation is paid by the employer on top, at the rate the Super Guarantee Calculator uses.

Apprentice rates apply only under a contract of apprenticeship or training agreement made with the state or territory apprenticeship authority, in one of the five trades clause 12.2(c) lists: electrical, instrumentation, electronic and communications, refrigeration and air conditioning, and power lines work and cable jointing. The term is four years under clause 12.10, and the rate steps up with each year served. Credits granted by the apprenticeship authority count as part of the apprenticeship for that purpose, so recognised prior training can bring the next step forward. Days short or days of unlawful absence are added back to the term under clause 12.15.

Time at training and assessment counts as time worked and is paid at the apprentice’s rate (clause 12.4), and the employer reimburses course fees and prescribed textbooks within six months (clause 12.8). An apprentice who attends technical college on a rostered day off gets another day off instead (clause 12.13), and an apprentice under 18 cannot be required to work overtime or shiftwork (clause 12.11). Probation is capped at three months.

A school-based apprentice is paid the same hourly rates for every hour worked, including off-the-job training time, which for a full-time student is counted as 25% of the hours worked on the job. School-based apprentices move 12 months up the scale for every two years of employment.

The Year 12 column applies to an apprentice, other than an adult apprentice, who started on or after 1 January 2014 and has completed Year 12. It lifts the first year from 50% to 55% and the second from 60% to 65% of the trade rate, worth $60.04 a week in the first year. From the third year the two scales meet. Apprentices who started before 2014 are on an older scale that this page does not publish.

An adult apprentice is defined in clause 2 as a person 21 or over at the time of entering the training contract. The first year is 80% of the trade rate and every later year is the electrical worker grade 1 rate, $1,004.90 a week, the same figure as the National Minimum Wage, before the allowances are added. Clause 16.4(b)(i) protects an employee who was already working for the same employer under this award for at least six months full-time, or twelve months part-time or as a regular casual: their minimum wage cannot drop because they became an apprentice, and they keep the minimum rate for the classification they were on.

Once the apprenticeship is finished, the trade classification is Electrical worker grade 5. With the industry, tool and licence allowances the all-purpose rate is $1,223.11 a week, $32.19 an hour, which is the figure the pay guide prints for a licensed electrical mechanic.