Free check
SalaryCareer Transition

What Jobs Pay in Australia: The Real Numbers

11 min read

Quick answer

Forget the "top 10 highest-paying jobs" listicles. Here's what the roles a call centre, admin, claims or customer-service worker can actually move into pay right now, based on Jobs and Skills Australia's Occupation and Industry Profiles (drawing on the ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025):

  • Customer service and contact centre roles: median $1,414 a week full-time (contact centre worker level) rising to $2,206 a week at contact centre or customer service manager level.
  • Claims and insurance roles: $1,559 a week at insurance agent level, $1,995 a week at claims assessor/loss adjuster level.
  • NDIS coordination and disability support roles: $1,844 a week (welfare support worker family, which covers disability services officers and community workers).
  • Health admin roles: $1,229 a week at receptionist level, $1,730 a week at office manager level, $2,720 a week at health and welfare services manager level.
  • Operations and business support roles: $1,438 a week at general clerk level, $2,130 a week at contract, program or project administrator level.

For comparison, the median full-time weekly earnings figure across all Australian occupations is $1,852. Every figure above is a median, not a promise, and it moves with experience, employer and state. Want to see where you'd actually land? Run the free Career Change Check and see roles people from your kind of work moved into.

How to read salary data honestly

Two words do most of the damage in salary content: "average" and "up to". A handful of high earners can drag an average well above what most people take home, and "up to $150k" headlines almost always describe the ceiling, not the entry point.

Median is the better number: the middle value, half the people in that occupation earn more, half earn less. JSA's Occupation and Industry Profiles report the median full-time weekly earnings for non-managerial employees paid at the adult rate, using ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours data. That population is chosen to exclude very high earners (managers) and very low earners (part-timers, junior staff), so the comparison between occupations is fairer.

Two honest caveats worth carrying into every number in this piece:

  1. Experience moves the number more than the job title does. A median is one snapshot across everyone currently doing that job, from someone six months in to someone twenty years in. If you're switching careers, you're not starting at the median, you're starting near the bottom of the range and working up.
  2. JSA's current occupation profiles publish a median only, not a full pay spread. Where a role has a wide part-time share, like Receptionists at 57% part-time, the full-time median understates how much of the workforce is working fewer hours for less total pay. Read every figure below as "roughly here, with real variation either side", not a fixed number.

What the reachable destination roles actually pay

These are the families we see career changers actually land in, not the highest-paying jobs in the country. Figures are median full-time weekly earnings from JSA's Occupation and Industry Profiles (ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025), with a rough annualised figure (weekly x 52) in brackets for readability. That annualised figure is a guide, not a literal salary quote.

Customer service and customer success

Call or Contact Centre Workers sit at a median $1,414 a week (roughly $73,500 a year), across about 28,500 people employed nationally. Move up into a Call, Contact Centre or Customer Service Manager role and the median jumps to $2,206 a week (roughly $114,700), across about 38,500 workers. That's the clearest "same skill set, more pay" trajectory here: the skills that make someone good on the phones (de-escalation, systems fluency, working to metrics) are the same ones that get someone promoted into running the floor. For the full breakdown, see customer success salaries in Australia.

Claims and insurance

Insurance Agents earn a median $1,559 a week (roughly $81,100), across about 17,300 workers, and formal qualifications aren't essential to get in the door. The destination role, Insurance Investigators, Loss Adjusters and Risk Surveyors (the closest classified match to "claims assessor"), sits at a median $1,995 a week (roughly $103,700), across a smaller pool of about 9,100 workers. It's one of the better-paid landing spots for someone from claims processing, customer service or admin, provided you're comfortable with the assessment and investigation side rather than phone-based claims handling. See claims officer salaries in Australia for the role-specific detail.

NDIS coordination and disability support

Welfare Support Workers, the JSA grouping that covers Disability Services Officers and Community Workers, sit at a median $1,844 a week (roughly $95,900), across about 94,500 workers nationally. This is a genuinely strong number for a role that's often reachable with a Certificate IV rather than a degree, and it sits inside one of the fastest-growing parts of the labour market (more on that below). If NDIS-adjacent work is on your list, start with NDIS coordination roles to see what the entry requirements actually look like.

Health admin

This family has the widest spread of any group here. Receptionists (which includes Medical Receptionists) sit at a median $1,229 a week (roughly $63,900), a genuine entry point, across about 181,300 workers, more than half of them part-time. Move into an Office Manager role and the median lifts to $1,730 a week (roughly $90,000). At the senior end, Health and Welfare Services Managers earn a median $2,720 a week (roughly $141,400), though that role typically needs several years of experience and, for most people, further study. Read it as a three-rung ladder, not a single number.

Operations and business support

General Clerks, the broadest entry-level admin category, sit at a median $1,438 a week (roughly $74,800), across about 292,100 workers, the largest single group in this piece. Contract, Program and Project Administrators, a common destination for admin staff moving into coordination and delivery work, earn a median $2,130 a week (roughly $110,800). Office Managers, covered above, sit in between. Start at career change pathways for the fuller map of admin-to-operations moves.

Pay vs growth: where the money and the momentum line up

Pay alone doesn't tell you whether a move is worth it. A well-paid role that's shrinking is a worse bet than a fairly-paid role that's growing, because the shrinking one gets harder to hold onto and harder to get promoted in.

JSA's 2025 Employment Projections give a useful cross-check. Health Care and Social Assistance is the fastest-growing industry in the country, projected to add 290,300 jobs (12.3%) by 2030 and 541,900 jobs (22.9%) by 2035. Inside that industry, Health and Welfare Services Managers are projected to grow 27.1% over the coming decade, making that $2,720-a-week role one of the few destinations here that's both well paid and in genuine demand. Community and Personal Service Workers as a group (close to the Welfare Support Worker and NDIS-adjacent roles above) are projected to grow 13.7% by 2035.

The reverse is true for clerical and admin. JSA's projections describe Clerical and Administrative Workers as more likely to see weak or negative growth than most other groups, and the current annual trend data backs that up: Receptionists lost roughly 2,000 workers over the past year, General Clerks were close to flat. That doesn't mean admin roles vanish, they're still a real entry point, but treat them as a stepping stone into operations, coordination or health/disability roles rather than a long-term destination. For the full picture, see fastest-growing jobs in Australia.

Caption: Median pay and employment direction for reachable career-change destination roles in Australia, based on Jobs and Skills Australia Occupation and Industry Profiles (ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025) and JSA's 2025 Employment Projections. Alt text: Bar chart of median weekly pay for reachable career-change destination roles in Australia, with projected growth, from Jobs and Skills Australia data.

Well paid without a degree

Three roles in this list stand out because they pay well above the entry-level admin rate and don't lean on a bachelor's degree the way most professional roles do. JSA's education data (drawn from the 2021 Census, the most recent breakdown available for this measure) shows the share of each occupation's workforce holding a bachelor's degree, against an all-occupations average of 23.2%.

  • Call, Contact Centre and Customer Service Managers: median $2,206 a week, and only 21.6% of the workforce holds a bachelor's degree, below the all-jobs average. This is a promotion path, not a hiring-off-the-street path, but it's the best-paid genuinely degree-optional role on this list.
  • Office Managers: median $1,730 a week, with just 16.0% holding a bachelor's degree. A common landing spot for experienced admin staff.
  • Insurance Agents: median $1,559 a week. JSA's own occupation description notes formal qualifications aren't essential, and a Certificate III or IV in general insurance is a common (though not compulsory) way in.

Treat "without a degree" as "without a degree requirement", not "without any training". Most of these roles still expect a Certificate III or IV, on-the-job experience, or both.

What a realistic first-year number looks like after a switch

Here's the calibrated version, because the medians above describe the whole workforce in a role, not someone six months into a career change.

Take David, an admin officer moving into a claims-adjacent role. He shouldn't expect to walk in earning $1,995 a week. Entry-level claims and insurance work more often starts closer to the Insurance Agent median of $1,559 a week, or below it while training, with the higher figure realistic after two to four years once he's built the assessment and investigation experience the role calls for.

Take Lisa, a call centre worker moving into NDIS-adjacent disability support. The $1,844 a week Welfare Support Worker median is a reasonable one-to-three-year target once she's got a Certificate IV and some runs on the board, not a day-one number. Most people in her position start a rung below that while they build sector-specific experience.

The honest pattern across every family here: expect your first year after a switch to sit below the median for that occupation, and expect two to four years of consistent work to reach or beat it. That's not a discouraging number, it's a real one, and it's a lot better than staying in a role that's shrinking underneath you.

FAQ

What is the median salary in Australia in 2026? The median full-time weekly earnings figure across all occupations, as reported in Jobs and Skills Australia's Occupation and Industry Profiles (ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025), is $1,852 a week, or roughly $96,300 a year on an annualised basis. Individual occupations sit well above or below this depending on skill level, industry and experience.

What jobs pay well without a degree in Australia? Roles like Call, Contact Centre and Customer Service Managers ($2,206 a week median) and Office Managers ($1,730 a week median) pay well above the all-jobs median without requiring a bachelor's degree for most workers in the role. Both are typically reached through promotion or a VET qualification rather than direct entry.

Is claims officer a good-paying job in Australia? Entry-level claims and insurance roles (Insurance Agents) sit around $1,559 a week median, with claims assessor and loss adjuster roles reaching a median of $1,995 a week. It's a genuinely well-paid destination for someone from a customer service or admin background, though the higher figure usually takes a few years to reach.

How much do NDIS support coordination roles pay in Australia? Welfare Support Workers, the JSA grouping covering disability services officers and community workers, have median full-time weekly earnings of $1,844, or roughly $95,900 annualised. Most people reach this level with a Certificate IV rather than a degree, and the sector sits inside one of the fastest-growing parts of the Australian labour market, so demand is genuinely there.

What's the difference between median and average salary? Median is the middle value, half the workforce earns more, half earns less. Average (mean) can be skewed upward by a small number of very high earners. JSA and the ABS report median figures for occupation comparisons because they give a more representative picture of what most people in a role actually earn.

Changing Careers provides general information, not licensed career or financial advice.

Want a clearer read on where you stand? The free Career Change Check shows roles people from your kind of work moved into, from the same Jobs and Skills Australia data used in this piece.

Related reading

Sources

Find out which parts of your job AI can already do. It is free and takes about three minutes.

Want a hand with what comes next? The 12-week Sprint covers your resume, LinkedIn and interview practice, with up to three coach reviews of a targeted resume or an application from an Australian career coach, for A$299 paid once. Before you decide anything, you can read who we are or send us a question.

Changing Careers
Built from Australian government occupation data.
Last updated: 9 July 2026