Registered nurse salary in Australia
Registered nurse pay can vary with classification, speciality, roster and the state or territory where the work is performed.
360,020 people reported under the ATO occupation group “Registered nurse” for 2023-24. The published median salary or wage income was $78,624.
What this page measures
This page uses ATO unit group 2544. It combines registered nursing specialities including aged care, community health, critical care, mental health, perioperative and other registered nursing roles, so it is not an award rate for one nursing grade.
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 in the source data
- Aged care registered nurse
- Critical care registered nurse
- Mental health registered nurse
- Perioperative registered nurse
- Nurse practitioner
A modelled pay guide
- Lower guide
- $53,700
- Modelled low
- $64,400
- ATO median
- $78,624
- Modelled high
- $95,900
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 professionals as a whole to that median. The upper guide is $119,200. These are not observed percentiles for this occupation group.
Why individual salaries vary
- Classification level and years of experience
- Clinical speciality and level of responsibility
- Shift, weekend, overtime and on-call arrangements
- State or territory industrial agreement and employer
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 “Registered nurse”. It covers full-time, non-managerial employees paid at the adult rate and puts them at $2,192 a week, or about $114,000 a year (May 2025), over roughly 41 hours. 44% of people in this occupation work part-time.
Modelled registered nurse pay by state
These guides apply each published state-to-national ratio for the Registered nurse 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 | $79,300 | +1% |
| Victoria | $74,300 | −6% |
| Queensland | $83,300 | +6% |
| Western Australia | $78,100 | −1% |
| South Australia | $76,400 | −3% |
| Tasmania | $77,600 | −1% |
| Australian Capital Territory | $93,800 | +19% |
| Northern Territory | $101,100 | +29% |
How the broader pay measure has moved
Average salary income for the “Registered nurse” occupation group went from $50,216 in 2010-11 to $79,242 in 2023-24 - 3.6% 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.
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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