Hairdresser

A hairdresser provides hair styling, cutting, colouring, and treatment services to clients in salons or mobile settings across Australia. They operate salon equipment, mix and apply chemical products safely, and maintain personal grooming standards while ensuring client satisfaction and salon hygiene protocols.

Consult with clients to understand their desired hairstyle, hair condition, and personal preferences before beginning treatment. Cut and style hair using scissors, clippers, razors, and styling tools to achieve the client's requested look. Mix and apply hair colouring products according to manufacturer instructions and colour charts, monitoring development time to prevent damage. Apply permanent wave solutions, relaxers, or straightening treatments to hair, following safety protocols and timing guidelines. Perform deep conditioning treatments, keratin treatments, and other specialised hair care procedures to improve hair health. Shampoo, condition, and rinse client hair using salon basins and appropriate water temperature control. Blow-dry and set hair using hand dryers, rollers, and styling products to achieve desired volume and finish. Sterilise and sanitise tools including scissors, combs, brushes, and clippers in accordance with health and safety regulations.

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.

Your income depends almost entirely on client numbers and tips, which means slow periods mean no pay. Many salons expect you to rent chair space rather than be employed, so you cover your own costs. Hand and wrist injuries from repetitive work are common and can end your career. Evening and weekend work is standard.

Hairdressers work across Australia, but salons concentrate in suburbs with higher household incomes and in CBD areas of capital cities. Regional towns have salons too, but fewer jobs overall. Mobile hairdressing exists but requires an established client base to be viable.

Published for ANZSCO unit group 3911, 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.

• Active Listeningcore
• Advise on hair stylecore
• Appointment Schedulingcore
• Attention to Detailcore
• Complaint Handlingcore
• Cultural Awareness and Sensitivitycore
• Customer Needs Assessmentcore
• Empathy and Emotional Intelligencecore
• Invoicing and Billing Administrationcore
• Multitaskingcore
• Problem Solvingcore
• Time Management and Prioritisationcore
• Upselling and Cross-Sellingcore
• Verbal Communicationcore
• Adaptability and Flexibility
• Administer appointments
• Basic Arithmetic and Numerical Accuracy
• Continuous Learning and Upskilling
• Feedback Collection and Actioning
• Incident Reporting
• Policy and Procedure Adherence
• Team Collaboration
• Workload Self-Management

• 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.

Where our numbers come from.

What Hairdresser workers move into, from ten years of tax records.

Last updated: 30 October 2026