Social worker salary in Australia
Social worker pay varies with the funding behind the role, the classification level of the relevant agreement, the practice area and how much of the workforce in that setting works part-time.
54,565 people reported under the ATO occupation group “Social worker” for 2023-24. The published median salary or wage income was $76,058.
What this page measures
This page uses ATO unit group 2725, which contains the single occupation Social worker, so the observed median describes that occupation directly rather than a combined group. It spans health, child protection, family violence, disability, justice, aged care and school settings, and roughly a third of the workforce works part-time, which pulls a tax-return median below a full-time rate.
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
- Child protection social worker
- Mental health social worker
- Hospital social worker
- Family violence social worker
- Case manager
A modelled pay guide
- Lower guide
- $52,000
- Modelled low
- $62,300
- ATO median
- $76,058
- Modelled high
- $92,900
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 $115,400. These are not observed percentiles for this occupation group.
Why individual salaries vary
- Practice area and the funding model behind the role
- Classification level under the applicable award or agreement
- Government, health service, community sector or private employer
- Part-time and part-year work, which is common in this occupation
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 “Social worker”. It covers full-time, non-managerial employees paid at the adult rate and puts them at $2,172 a week, or about $112,900 a year (May 2025), over roughly 40 hours. 32% of workers in the published “Social worker” occupation group work part-time.
Modelled social worker pay by state
These guides apply each published state-to-national ratio for the Social worker 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 | $75,500 | −1% |
| Victoria | $74,600 | −2% |
| Queensland | $78,500 | +3% |
| Western Australia | $77,600 | +2% |
| South Australia | $75,000 | −1% |
| Tasmania | $76,700 | +1% |
| Australian Capital Territory | $86,400 | +14% |
| Northern Territory | $80,900 | +6% |
How the broader pay measure has moved
Average salary income for the “Social worker” occupation group went from $46,761 in 2010-11 to $75,251 in 2023-24 - 3.7% 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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