Sports Turf Trades Worker
A Sports Turf Trades Worker maintains and repairs sports fields, golf courses, and turf surfaces across Australian recreational and professional venues. They operate specialised turf maintenance equipment, diagnose turf health issues, and perform construction and renovation of playing surfaces to ensure they meet safety and performance standards.
What this job is
A Sports Turf Trades Worker maintains and repairs sports fields, golf courses, and turf surfaces across Australian recreational and professional venues. They operate specialised turf maintenance equipment, diagnose turf health issues, and perform construction and renovation of playing surfaces to ensure they meet safety and performance standards. The role combines horticulture, machinery operation, and construction techniques specific to sports ground management.
Are employers advertising this role?
Rising, up 39.3% 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
Operate cylinder mowers, rotary mowers, and ride-on equipment to cut and maintain turf at specified heights across various sports surfaces. Diagnose turf diseases, pest infestations, and nutrient deficiencies using visual assessment and soil testing, and apply targeted treatments. Apply fertilisers, herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides in accordance with Australian pesticide safety standards and label directions. Perform aeration, scarification, and topdressing of turf to improve soil structure and drainage on sports fields and golf greens. Construct and install sports field surfaces including laying new turf, installing drainage systems, and preparing subgrades to meet Australian Standards for sports facilities. Maintain and repair turf maintenance machinery including mowers, irrigation systems, and grounds equipment. Design and install irrigation systems and manage water application schedules to maintain optimal turf moisture levels across fields. Conduct soil testing and interpret results to determine pH, nutrient levels, and organic matter content for turf health management.
Who does this now
About 10,100 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. SA 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 need to get qualified in pesticide and herbicide handling, which means multiple certifications and ongoing compliance checks. The work is seasonal and weather-dependent, so hours and pay can be unpredictable. You're also facing automation risk as ride-on mowing and irrigation systems become more automated. Pay typically sits below trades like plumbing or electrical work, even with experience.
Where the jobs are
Regional areas have fewer positions. Most work is on-site at venues, though some equipment maintenance can be workshop-based. Remote work doesn't apply to this role.
Pay
Published for ANZSCO unit group 3623, 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
- Attention to Detailcore
- Continuous Learning and Upskillingcore
- Incident Reportingcore
- Inventory Trackingcore
- Policy and Procedure Adherencecore
- Problem Solvingcore
- Regulatory and Legislative Awarenesscore
- Risk Identificationcore
- Team Collaborationcore
- Time Management and Prioritisationcore
- Verbal Communicationcore
- Workload Self-Managementcore
- Adaptability and Flexibility
- Advise customers on types of flowers
- Advise on plant fertilizer
- Basic Arithmetic and Numerical Accuracy
- Goal Setting and Planning
- Process Improvement Identification
- Quality Assurance and Checking
- Record Management
- Supplier Communication
- Written Communication
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.
Last updated: 30 October 2026
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