Firefighter
A firefighter responds to emergency calls to extinguish fires, rescue people and animals from hazardous situations, and provide emergency medical assistance in Australian communities. They operate specialised equipment and vehicles, conduct fire prevention inspections, and participate in community fire safety education programmes.
What this job is
A firefighter responds to emergency calls to extinguish fires, rescue people and animals from hazardous situations, and provide emergency medical assistance in Australian communities. They operate specialised equipment and vehicles, conduct fire prevention inspections, and participate in community fire safety education programmes. Firefighters work shifts in fire stations, often in high-risk and physically demanding environments.
Are employers advertising this role?
Rising, up 74.5% over 5 years
Counted across a group of similar roles. These are three-month rolling averages of online job advertisements, not filled positions.
Source: Jobs and Skills Australia, Internet Vacancy Index.
Day-to-day
Respond to emergency calls and operate fire trucks to incident locations following Safe Work Australia protocols and local dispatch procedures. Operate fire hoses, nozzles, and pumping equipment to extinguish fires in residential, commercial, and industrial settings. Deploy aerial ladders and rescue equipment to access people trapped in buildings or vehicles. Administer first aid and emergency medical care at incident scenes, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation and trauma response. Conduct routine maintenance and testing of firefighting equipment, hoses, breathing apparatus, and vehicles to ensure operational readiness. Perform fire prevention inspections of commercial and public buildings in compliance with local council fire safety regulations and AS 1670 standards. Participate in structural firefighting operations including ventilation, hose deployment, and victim search and rescue in smoke and heat. Operate self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) in oxygen-depleted or contaminated atmospheres.
Who does this now
About 13,500 people worked in this occupation across Australia at the 2021 Census.
What this role asks for
Certificate IV or Certificate III with at least two years of on-the-job training (ABS skill level 3)
Registration or licensing may be required.
Can employers fill these jobs
Employers hiring for this occupation were generally able to find suitable applicants in 2025. Ratings are not the same everywhere. NSW was rated in shortage. This measures how hard employers found it to fill jobs. It is not a count of jobs, and it does not say whether the occupation is growing.
Requirements
The standard entry pathway requires a Certificate IV or Certificate III with at least two years of on-the-job training (ABS skill level 3). Specific qualification requirements vary by employer and state. Some employers may accept equivalent experience. Check yourcareer.gov.au for available courses and dewr.gov.au/skills-reform/free-tafe for subsidised training options.
The honest hard part
You'll face physical and psychological strain that doesn't ease much over time. Shift work (often 10 to 14 hour shifts) disrupts family life and sleep patterns permanently. You'll witness traumatic scenes and carry PTSD risk. Pay plateaus quickly without promotion, and reaching senior ranks means competing for few positions. The job is also physically brutal on your body long-term.
Where the jobs are
Jobs concentrate in metropolitan areas and larger regional cities where fire services are funded by councils and states. Smaller towns and rural areas have volunteer firefighters rather than paid roles. Most positions are with government fire services; private fire safety work exists but is limited. Remote work is not an option.
Pay
Published for ANZSCO unit group 4412, the wider group this job sits in, not for this job on its own.
This is the median for full-time employees who are not managers and are paid at the adult rate, before tax and salary sacrifice. It is a guide to what the work pays, not a wage rate.
Source: ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.
Skills
- Active Listeningcore
- Adaptability and Flexibilitycore
- Empathy and Emotional Intelligencecore
- Incident Reportingcore
- Policy and Procedure Adherencecore
- Problem Solvingcore
- Regulatory and Legislative Awarenesscore
- Risk Identificationcore
- Team Collaborationcore
- Time Management and Prioritisationcore
- Trauma-Informed Communicationcore
- Verbal Communicationcore
- Workflow Prioritisationcore
- Attention to Detail
- Community Development
- Conflict De-escalation
- Continuous Learning and Upskilling
- Cultural Awareness and Sensitivity
- Record Management
- Report Writing
- Workload Self-Management
Which of these do you have?
Tick the ones you haveCommon questions
Sources
- ABS OSCA 2024, occupation definition and task statements
- ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.
- ABS, 2021 Census of Population and Housing based on usual place of residence (Custom Report). OSCA Experimental Estimates.
Role data is drawn from official Australian Government sources, and each figure names where it comes from. Where a role is not in the ABS classification, the page shows no government figures for it. Data may not reflect every local variation.
What Firefighter workers move into, from ten years of tax records.
Last updated: 30 October 2026
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