Police officer salary in Australia
Police pay is set by each state and territory force under its own enterprise agreement, so rank, years of service, shift pattern and jurisdiction all move the figure.
66,688 people reported under the ATO occupation group “Police” for 2023-24. The published median salary or wage income was $109,409.
What this page measures
This page uses ATO unit group 4413. It combines the general policing stream with detectives across all Australian jurisdictions, so its median describes sworn police as a whole rather than one rank, one specialisation or one force’s pay scale. Federal, state and territory officers are counted together.
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
- Police officer
- Detective
A modelled pay guide
- Lower guide
- $80,300
- Modelled low
- $92,500
- ATO median
- $109,409
- Modelled high
- $142,700
Only the median is a published statistic for this occupation group. The lower and upper markers are a guide created by applying earnings-distribution ratios for community and personal service workers as a whole to that median. The upper guide is $187,000. These are not observed percentiles for this occupation group.
Why individual salaries vary
- Rank and years of sworn service
- State or territory force and its enterprise agreement
- Shift, weekend, overtime and operational allowances
- Detective, specialist or command responsibilities
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 occupation group “Police”. It covers full-time, non-managerial employees paid at the adult rate and puts them at $2,560 a week, or about $133,100 a year (May 2025), over roughly 43 hours. 5% of workers in the published “Police” occupation group work part-time.
Modelled police officer pay by state
These guides apply each published state-to-national ratio for the Police group to the observed national median above. They are not observed state medians for individual workers.
| State | State-adjusted guide | vs national |
|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | $113,400 | +4% |
| Victoria | $94,900 | −13% |
| Queensland | $124,200 | +14% |
| Western Australia | $113,400 | +4% |
| South Australia | $112,600 | +3% |
| Tasmania | $107,700 | −2% |
| Australian Capital Territory | $102,600 | −6% |
| Northern Territory | $110,100 | +1% |
How the broader pay measure has moved
Average salary income for the “Police” occupation group went from $77,274 in 2010-11 to $109,187 in 2023-24 - 2.7% 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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