Vending Machine Attendant

A vending machine attendant services, stocks, and maintains coin and card-operated vending machines in public locations such as workplaces, shopping centres, and transport hubs. The role involves regularly refilling machines with products, collecting revenue, performing basic repairs and cleaning, and ensuring machines operate reliably and comply with food safety and hygiene standards.

Collect currency and electronic payment data from vending machines and reconcile takings against stock records. Restock vending machines with food, beverages, snacks, and other retail items according to sales data and product rotation schedules. Clean and sanitise internal and external surfaces of machines to meet food safety standards and prevent pest contamination. Inspect machines for mechanical faults, coin jams, card reader errors, and product dispensing failures, and perform minor repairs or escalate to technicians. Check expiry dates on products and remove stock that has passed best-before dates to comply with food safety regulations. Test cash and card payment systems, coin mechanisms, and product temperature controls to ensure correct operation. Empty and replace collection bins, currency cassettes, and waste containers from multiple machines across assigned routes. Document machine location, stock levels, maintenance performed, and malfunction reports in logbooks or mobile applications.

The standard entry pathway requires a Certificate I or compulsory secondary education (ABS skill level 5). 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 work is repetitive and physically demanding: you'll be lugging heavy stock, bending to access machines, and driving between locations regularly. Pay is modest and capped. The real risk is automation: cashless payments and smart machines are already shrinking the industry, so job security beyond the next 5 to 10 years is uncertain.

Regional towns have fewer machines and less work. Most routes are based from company depots in metro areas, and remote work doesn't apply to this role.

Published for ANZSCO unit group 8997, 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.

• Change shelf labelscore
• Adjust temperature gauges
• Advise on heating systems energy efficiency
• Calculate utility payments
• Carry out stock rotation
• Clean vending machines

• 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.

Last updated: 30 October 2026