Australia · Jobs & wages
What people earn.
And where you fit.
A national average is only a starting point. Explore the middle of the distribution, different employee groups, occupations and industries.
Not seasonally adjusted (original) means regular seasonal patterns remain in the figures. It does not mean the first or unrevised edition. Seasonally adjusted figures allow for regular seasonal patterns; the label does not mean more up-to-date.
What does an Australian employee earn?
A median sits in the middle of a distribution. Roughly half earn less and half earn more; people can share the same earnings. A mean is an average, and it can be pulled up by high earners. Both are useful, but they answer different questions.
The middle of the distribution
Median weekly earnings in the main job, August 2025. The August 2024 figure was $1,399.
Before income tax, salary sacrifice and other deductions. Includes full-time and part-time employees, excluding owner managers of incorporated enterprises. It is not take-home pay, household income or a full-time salary.
What about average earnings?
Mean weekly total earnings of all employees · AWE, May 2026, original series
Which number should I use?
For a middle-of-the-distribution weekly pay figure, start with the median. For the average amount paid across employees or a selected group, use the appropriately labelled mean.
Never compare these as if they describe the same group or survey date.
Where do your earnings sit?
Compare your usual pay before tax in your main job with published national employee thresholds. Choose how often that amount is paid. This describes employees, rather than household income or everyone in Australia.
Pay period
Loading the published earnings bands…
■ Share of employees · │ Your pay and its band (after entry) · ┆ Median
The displayed $0–$3,699 weekly range covers 94.4% of employees. Higher earnings remain in the denominator but are not shown as bars. The dashed line marks the median. Hover over a bar or tab to it for details.
See the histogram figures
| Earnings band | Share of employees (%) | Employees (thousands) |
|---|
Published weekly thresholds · August 2025 · Main-job employee earnings before deductions
How to read it. We compare a weekly equivalent: fortnightly ÷ 2, monthly × 12 ÷ 52, yearly ÷ 52.
What it cannot tell you. Enter usual pay for a full working year, not a part-year total. Irregular bonuses and periods without pay can make annual amounts misleading. The percentile cards express the published weekly thresholds in your chosen pay period. Monthly and yearly figures are equivalents of weekly earnings, not separate measurements of monthly or annual income. The source band tables below remain weekly.
Sources and detailed method. Published thresholds support broad brackets, not an exact percentile. People can share the same earnings.
See the published national pay bands
| Weekly earnings band | Employees (thousands) |
|---|
| Weekly earnings band | Employees (thousands) |
|---|
The source publishes overlapping $100 and $200 groupings. These tables stay separate; do not add across them. Only the ranges published in these webpage tables are shown. No missing upper tail is estimated.
Subgroup distribution filters are unavailable while conflicting period labels in the workbook are reviewed. The national figures here come from a separately labelled ABS webpage table.
Where does your taxable income sit?
Income includes more than pay. Taxable income includes assessable wages, investment and other income, less allowable deductions. This comparison covers taxable individuals in 2023–24, including people who worked only part of the year. It does not represent all Australians or all employees.
Loading the ATO comparison…
Explore all 100 taxable-income groups
Each bar represents roughly 1% of taxable individuals, ordered from lower to higher taxable income. Its height shows the average annual taxable income within that group, including the top 1%. It is not the entry threshold or median.
Australia · All taxable individuals · 2023–24 tax year · Annual taxable income ($)
The vertical scale starts at zero and includes the full top group. All bars start brown; entering your taxable income highlights its group in green.
Hover over a bar or tab to it for its income range, average and number of people.
Use taxable income from your tax return, rather than annual salary. This entry is separate from the ABS pay comparison above. Amounts are compared with published whole-dollar ranges; ties do not establish an exact personal rank. People with no net tax liability are outside this taxable-individual population.
See the taxable-income figures
| Percentile group | Annual income range | Average annual income | Individuals |
|---|
Source: ATO Taxation statistics 2023–24, Individuals Table 16a, via the recorded data release used by The Budget Picture. Average income is the published group’s total taxable income divided by its number of individuals. Groups contain approximately equal numbers because of published boundaries and ties. This is a different measure, population and period from the ABS chart above.
Earnings aren't evenly distributed.
Explore published median pay by employee group. These differences reflect several factors, including hours worked and occupational mix; they are not estimates of a like-for-like wage gap.
Who earns what?
Loading the published employee earnings history…
How have earnings changed?
Median earnings over time – All people, Men and Women
Brown: All people · Dashed green: Men · Dotted blue: Women.
See the earnings history figures
| Reference month | All people | Men | Women |
|---|
Nominal dollars before deductions. Full published history is the default. History starts at different dates for different measures and groups. The selected bar-chart date is independent of the history range.
Historical coverage, survey changes and source
Selected national Men/Women full-time and part-time weekly medians extend to 1976, from the ABS published webpage. Workbook medians extend to 1989 where available; its earlier zero placeholders remain unavailable. No All people or all-arrangements median is calculated from subgroup medians. Age, occupation and industry comparisons use published 2014–2025 histories.
July 1991 retains its actual reference month. No survey was conducted in 1996. Methods changed in 2004 (imputation) and 2014 (Characteristics of Employment); lines break at those boundaries and between early webpage and workbook presentations. Do not read them as an uninterrupted like-for-like series. Missing or too unreliable observations remain gaps. The existing August 2024 female part-time weekly hold is retained.
Source: ABS Employee earnings, August 2025 edition, Tables 1, 2 and 6 and the national weekly-earnings webpage chart. Published survey estimates, with source RSEs retained. ABS methodology. Published occupation classifications are retained; these are different populations from ATO annual salary data.
Different jobs. Different earnings.
Compare published employee medians for the same measure and period. Weekly differences can reflect hours; hourly figures still reflect job and employee mix.
Loading the published employee earnings history…
See the estimates and survey uncertainty
| Group | Estimate | Relative standard error |
|---|
Source edition: August 2025 · The selected survey reference period is shown above. Main-job earnings before deductions. RSE 25–50% means use with caution; above 50% is too unreliable for general use and is unavailable as a pay comparison. Source-coded zero medians remain unavailable. Source-coded zero RSEs are shown as not available, rather than implying zero uncertainty. These differences are not a like-for-like pay gap.
What do different occupations earn?
Explore annual salary and wages reported to the ATO for 2023–24. These include part-time and part-year work: they are not current full-time salary quotes. These tax-return figures cover a different population from the ABS employee surveys elsewhere on this page.
People
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Loading the published ATO occupation figures…
Annual salary and wages – All people
Median (bar and bold figure) Average (marker and second figure)
See the occupation figures
| Occupation | Code | Median ($ per year) | Average ($ per year) |
|---|
Median is the middle reported amount; average is the total divided by the number of recipients. Differences reflect hours, part-year work and the mix of people in each occupation. They are not a like-for-like pay gap. Small or unspecified categories can give unusual results; no categories are removed solely because their pay looks unusual. Unavailable figures are not replaced with zero.
About the ATO figures and source
Source: ATO Taxation statistics 2023–24, Individuals Table 15, through the accepted OD-PIT01-2023-24-0.1.0 release used by The Budget Picture. Salary and wages use their own reporting population. Taxable income and taxpayer counts are separate measures and are not shown here. ATO source and tables. Occupation names and codes retain the ATO source classification; they are not joined to the ABS occupation groups.
All published categories at the selected level are available, including blank and not-specified categories. Search finds detailed occupations across every level, matching names, codes and parent group names. Explore occupations starts with broad groups and expands published unit groups and detailed occupations beneath their parents; the other views show all categories at one level. The read-only table follows the same people, expanded detail and search choices as the chart and always shows both pay measures. Published unavailable values remain unavailable. There is no seasonal adjustment, inflation adjustment or conversion from weekly to annual earnings.