Average salary by occupation in Australia

Full-time adult average weekly ordinary time earnings were $2,051.10 a week, or $106,657 a year, in November 2025. This is the main national benchmark for full-time adult earnings. It excludes overtime and is calculated as a mean, which means it can be lifted by higher earners.

Median weekly earnings in a main job were lower, at $1,425 a week, or $74,100 a year, in August 2025. That means the median sits $32,557 a year below the full-time adult average. The gap shows how higher earners can pull the mean above the middle of the earnings distribution.

The broader all-employees average was $1,562.40 a week, or $81,245 a year, in November 2025. This figure includes full-time, part-time and casual workers, so it sits below the full-time adult benchmark.

At the sub-major occupation level, the gap between the highest and lowest-paid groups is wider. Chief executives, general managers and legislators record the highest median weekly earnings, at $3,223 a week, or $167,596 a year. Food preparation assistants record the lowest, at $448 a week, or $23,296 a year. The difference between these two groups is $2,775 a week, or more than $144,000 a year.

All figures in this section are medians: half of workers in each group earn more than the stated amount, and half earn less.

Industry can shape earnings as much as occupation. Mining workers averaged $3,174.40 a week in ordinary time earnings in November 2025, or $165,069 a year, more than double the accommodation and food services industry average of $1,501.60 a week ($78,083/yr). The gap between the highest and lowest-paying industries was about $87,000 a year.

The public sector averaged $2,215.90 a week on a full-time adult ordinary time basis in November 2025, compared with $2,006.00 a week in the private sector. That $209.90 weekly premium equates to about $10,915 a year.

One limit applies to the industry comparison: the Average Weekly Earnings survey excludes businesses engaged primarily in agriculture, forestry and fishing, so those industries do not appear in the ranking below.

Labourers recorded the fastest growth in median hourly earnings of any major occupation group between August 2020 and August 2025, rising 21.7% over the five years, from $26.30 to $32.00 an hour. Clerical and administrative workers rose 21.1%, and community and personal service workers rose 20.6%.

At the sub-major level, arts and media professionals recorded the highest average annual growth in median weekly earnings between 2020 and 2025, at 7.9% per annum. This was the strongest published growth rate for any detailed occupation group over that period.

The overall pace of wage growth was 3.3% in the year to March 2026, as measured by the Wage Price Index. This was the slowest annual rate since 2022 and below the recent peak of 4.3% in late 2023. The three fastest-growing major groups, labourers, clerical and administrative workers, and community and personal service workers, still sit below the all-occupation average weekly earnings of $1,611.10.

Total wages and salaries paid by employers reached $110,560 million in March 2026, up 6.0% from the same month a year earlier, according to the Monthly Employee Earnings Indicator. This figure is higher than the 3.3% WPI reading because it captures both wage changes and changes in the size and composition of the workforce. The WPI measures wage movements for a fixed set of jobs only.