Security Guard Pay Rate 2026-27
Licensed security work is covered by the Security Services Industry Award, which sets five security officer levels. All five are published below, with casual rates and what each level leaves after tax.
The short answer
A security guard is paid $28.42 an hour at Security Officer Level 1, or $1,080.10 a week full-time. The scale runs through 5 levels to $31.20 an hour at Security Officer Level 5. A casual at the bottom level is paid $35.53 an hour, including the 25% loading, before any night, weekend or public holiday penalty.
Award floor
$28.42
Security Officer Level 1, an hour
Top officer level
$31.20
Security Officer Level 5, an hour
Casual, at the floor
$35.53
Includes the 25% loading
Take-home a year
$47,672
$1,834 a fortnight, at the floor
These are legal minimums set by a modern award, not a market average. This site does not publish average or advertised salaries, because the number that matters on a payslip is the floor an employer cannot go below. Many employers pay more, and an enterprise agreement can set a higher rate again.
Security guard rates, level by level.
Adult base rates for all 5 security officer levels. Every figure below was cross-checked against the award’s own rates schedule, so none of them is derived. None of them includes a shift loading.
Minimum rates
1 July 2026 · PR799297
Read from the minimum rates table and cross-checked against schedule B, which publishes the hourly and casual columns as the award's own figures.
| Classification | Weekly | Hourly | Casual hourly | Take-home a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Security Officer Level 1 | $1,080.10 | $28.42 | $35.53 | $47,672 |
| Security Officer Level 2 | $1,111.00 | $29.24 | $36.55 | $48,765 |
| Security Officer Level 3 | $1,129.80 | $29.73 | $37.16 | $49,430 |
| Security Officer Level 4 | $1,148.70 | $30.23 | $37.79 | $50,098 |
| Security Officer Level 5 | $1,185.70 | $31.20 | $39.00 | $51,406 |
Hourly figures are the weekly rate over 38 ordinary hours. Take-home is an estimate for a single Australian resident for tax purposes with no study loan debt and no Medicare levy surcharge, worked out with the same Wage Calculator used across this site. Superannuation is paid by your employer on top of these rates and is never deducted from them.
Which award covers a security guard.
The Security Services Industry Award 2020 (MA000016) covers the private security industry: businesses providing guarding, patrol, crowd control, alarm monitoring, control room and cash-in-transit services, and the employees who do that work. It classifies them as security officer levels 1 to 5, and those 5 classifications are the whole adult scale. There is nothing above Security Officer Level 5 in this award.
What decides which level applies is the award’s classification definitions, which this site has not published yet, so this page will not tell you what duties put an employee on one level rather than another. If your payslip names a level, read the rate off the table above and check it against the level you are actually working at.
Two things distort published security pay more than they distort most jobs. The first is rostering: security is worked at night and on weekends far more than average, so advertised and average figures for security work carry penalty rates baked in, and comparing one of those against a base rate is not a like-for-like comparison. The second is that in-house security, employed directly by a venue, a retailer or a hospital rather than by a security contractor, may be covered by the award for that business instead of this one.
Award rates are also only the floor. Large security contractors, and most airport, government and event security work, operate under enterprise agreements that set their own rates, shift rules and allowances, and where one applies it is that agreement, not the award, that governs the payslip.
Every classification in this award, including the ones this page leaves out, is listed on the Security Award Pay Rates page.
Where these figures come from.
Provenance
Verified- Award
- Security Services Industry Award 2020 (MA000016)
- Effective from
- 1 July 2026
- Consolidated to
- 1 July 2026
- Determinations
- PR799297, PR799454
- Retrieved
- 9 September 2026
- Ordinary hours
- 38 a week
Every rate above was read from the award text at the Fair Work award library and nothing on this page is copied from another pay site. Rates change from the first full pay period on or after the effective date, so a payslip covering the changeover can lawfully carry the older figure for part of the period.
What this page does not cover.
Listed as plainly as what it does, because a rate page that hides its gaps is how the wrong number ends up on a payslip.
Junior rates
This page publishes adult rates. Where an award sets a junior percentage of the adult rate, this site does not publish it, so do not read a figure here as the minimum for an employee under 21.
Shift loadings and penalty rates
Afternoon, night, Saturday, Sunday, public holiday and overtime loadings are set separately in the award and are not in this table. On a night and weekend roster they are the larger part of the pay.
Allowances
Firearm, dog handling, first aid, uniform, travel and other allowances are additional to the rates above and are not included.
Classification definitions
What duties put an employee on one security officer level rather than another is set in the award and is not published on this site yet.
Enterprise agreements
Large contractors and most airport, government and event security work run registered agreements that displace the award rate, and those are not published here.
Market or advertised pay
This page publishes the award base rate only. It is not an average, a median, or what a given contractor actually offers.
Security Guard Pay Rate questions, answered.
How much security rate per hour?
$28.42 an hour at Security Officer Level 1, which is the lowest classification in the Security Services Industry Award 2020 and therefore the floor for licensed security work. The scale runs through 5 security officer levels to $31.20 an hour at Security Officer Level 5. A casual is paid the level rate plus a 25 per cent loading, so $35.53 an hour at the bottom and $39.00 an hour at the top. Night, weekend and public holiday work is paid above those figures and this page does not publish those loadings.
How much do security guards get paid in Australia?
Under the award, between $1,080.10 and $1,185.70 a week for 38 ordinary hours, depending on the security officer level, which is $28.42 to $31.20 an hour. Those are national minimums and the same figures apply in every state and territory. Advertised security pay is often well above them, partly because so much security work is rostered at night and on weekends, when penalty rates apply on top of the base rate. This page publishes the base rate, so treat it as the number an employer cannot go below rather than the number a payslip will show.
What does a security guard earn an hour in 2026?
From the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026, the Security Services Industry Award 2020 (MA000016) pays $28.42 an hour at Security Officer Level 1 and $31.20 an hour at Security Officer Level 5, with three levels in between. Casual rates for the same levels run from $35.53 to $39.00 an hour. Because the change applies from the first full pay period on or after that date rather than on the date itself, a payslip covering the changeover can lawfully carry the older figure for part of the period.
What is level 5 security?
Security Officer Level 5 is the highest of the 5 security officer classifications in this award, paid $31.20 an hour, or $1,185.70 a week. What puts an employee on it rather than the level below is set by the award's classification definitions, which this site has not published yet, so this page will not describe the duties. Published summaries of this award disagree about how many levels it even has, so check the level named on your payslip against the table above rather than against a summary.
Do security guards get paid more at night and on weekends?
Yes, and it is the single largest gap between this page and a real payslip. The award sets shift loadings for afternoon and night work and penalty rates for Saturday, Sunday and public holiday work, all calculated on top of the base rate for the level. Security work is rostered into those hours more than most work, so a guard who only ever works nights and weekends will earn well above the base figures here. Those loadings are set separately in the award and this site does not publish them yet.
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