Construction manager salary in Australia
Construction manager earnings can vary with project value, delivery responsibility, sector, location and the commercial risk carried by the role.
74,999 people reported under the ATO occupation “Builder - construction project manager” for 2023-24. The published median salary or wage income was $120,744.
What this page measures
The observed median uses ATO occupation 133111, Builder - construction project manager. State, full-time and trend comparisons come from the broader Construction manager unit group and are labelled as group data.
The ATO count includes everyone who reported this classification. Its public table does not publish the exact non-zero-income population used to calculate the median.
Related titles and specialisations
- Construction project manager
- Professional builder
A modelled pay guide
- Lower guide
- $72,900
- Modelled low
- $87,400
- ATO median
- $120,744
- Modelled high
- $151,200
Only the median is a published statistic for this occupation. The lower and upper markers are a guide created by applying earnings-distribution ratios for managers as a whole to that median. The upper guide is $187,100. These are not observed percentiles for this occupation.
Why individual salaries vary
- Project size, complexity and delivery stage
- Residential, commercial, civil or resources-sector work
- Contract, budget, safety and team responsibility
- Location, travel and site allowances
What full-time work pays
The tax-return median above can include part-year and part-time workers with non-zero salary or wage income. The ABS full-time benchmark is published for the broader occupation group “Construction manager”. It covers full-time, non-managerial employees paid at the adult rate and puts them at $3,751 a week, or about $195,100 a year (May 2025), over roughly 47 hours. 7% of workers in the published “Construction manager” occupation group work part-time.
Modelled construction manager pay by state
These guides apply each published state-to-national ratio for the Construction manager group to the observed national median above. They are not observed state medians for the specific construction manager occupation.
| State | State-adjusted guide | vs national |
|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | $117,800 | −2% |
| Victoria | $119,400 | −1% |
| Queensland | $124,200 | +3% |
| Western Australia | $139,100 | +15% |
| South Australia | $114,300 | −5% |
| Tasmania | $94,900 | −21% |
| Australian Capital Territory | $122,400 | +1% |
| Northern Territory | $124,400 | +3% |
How the broader pay measure has moved
Average salary income for the “Construction manager” occupation group went from $81,281 in 2010-11 to $126,196 in 2023-24 - 3.4% a year over 13 years. That is an average rather than a median, and it moves with hours worked and who is in the occupation as well as with pay.
Other occupation guides
Explore other salary guides built from the same ATO and ABS sources.
Turn the benchmark into a decision
Estimate take-home pay from the observed median, or compare a live job advertisement with the broader occupation evidence before applying.
To search another title or change the state, return to the Australian Salary Search.
Sources: ATO Table 15, ATO Table 14B, ABS Employee Earnings and Hours and Jobs and Skills Australia occupation data. Data retrieved 17 August 2026. Page reviewed . Full method on the methodology page.
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