Australian Salary Search
Uncover what people in your occupation earn
Search official ATO published Salary data on over one thousand jobs.
Want to check how a number was worked out?
Feeling nerdy? The detailed calculations, limitations and government source links live on their own pages, so they're available without getting in the way of your result.
Popular occupation salary guides
Start with these independently reviewable guides. Each separates the observed ATO median from modelled ranges and broader group comparisons.
Australian Salary Search FAQ
Where do these salary figures come from?
Open Australian government data, and nothing scraped from job ads. The occupation median and state comparison come from ATO Taxation Statistics 2023-24. Broad-group ratios used for the estimated pay guide come from the ABS Employee Earnings and Hours survey of May 2025. Jobs and Skills Australia and the ABS occupation index supply extra title wording and classification mappings.
These sources are published under Creative Commons Attribution licences, which is why we can use them and show their provenance.
Why is the data two years old, and can I see it in today’s money?
The ATO publishes Taxation Statistics roughly two years after the income year closes. Pay may have moved since, so eligible results offer a year selector that projects the median into the later income year shown.
That adjustment uses the occupation group’s recent change in average salary income rather than a blanket inflation figure. ATO Table 14B supplies the history from 2010-11 onward. Rates outside 0% to 8% are not projected and no rate is compounded for more than four years.
It is off by default and labelled as an estimate wherever it appears. An average also moves with hours worked and with who is in the occupation, not only with pay rates, so treat it as a scenario rather than a measurement.
Is this what a job would be advertised at?
No, and the difference matters. The ATO occupation population includes people who worked part of the year, worked part-time, or changed jobs. That can pull its median below what a full-time role would be advertised at.
Where the ABS publishes one, the result also shows a full-time benchmark beside the tax-return median: median weekly earnings for full-time, non-managerial adult-rate workers in the broader occupation group, annualised. It is useful context, not a like-for-like correction. Part-time and part-year work are among several reasons the populations and figures differ.
An advertised salary describes one full-time job. This describes what a whole occupation earned. For advertised ranges on a specific listing, use the Job Ad Analyser.
What is the chart under the result?
Average salary income for the occupation group, every income year since 2010-11, from ATO Taxation Statistics Table 14B. It answers a different question from the guide above: not the occupation median, but which way its group average has moved.
Two things matter when reading it. It is an average rather than a median, so a few very high earners can lift it above what a typical person earns. An occupation’s average also moves when its composition changes, not only when pay changes.
How is the range worked out?
The median is the occupation’s own published figure, adjusted by its broader occupation group if you choose a state. The surrounding guide applies reference ratios from ABS earnings data for the broad occupational group, because that is the only level at which the ABS publishes a full distribution.
Those lower and upper markers are not observed percentiles for the narrower occupation. A software engineer and a primary school teacher are both professionals, so they receive the same shaped guide around different medians. Treat the guide directionally rather than as a count of what share of people earned each amount.
The search box picked the wrong job. Can I change it?
Yes. Every result shows which occupation it matched, with a "Not right?" link listing the next best candidates. Matching a typed title to one of roughly 1,600 official occupation labels is a heuristic, and it will sometimes pick a near neighbour instead of the one you meant.
Plainer titles match better. "Electrician" finds the trade; "Senior Field Service Electrician (Level 3)" has to be guessed at.
Why can’t I get a figure for my state?
The ATO publishes state figures by occupation group rather than by specific occupation. We use the Australia-wide figure when a state cell was suppressed, fewer than 100 people reported that group there, or its published ratio falls outside a 0.5x to 2x sanity guardrail. The result says when this fallback is used rather than inventing a number.
Does this include superannuation?
No. These are salary and wage income figures reported through tax data, which is gross pay before tax and does not include employer super contributions. To see what a figure looks like after tax and what super sits on top, put it through the Pay Calculator.
Browse all Salary Insider FAQs for salaries, tax, super, HECS and job ads.
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