Highest paying jobs in Australia, by median pay

What the ATO top 10 measures

The list comes from the ATO's Taxation statistics for 2023-24, published in June 2026. After surgeons, anaesthetists and internal medicine specialists it runs financial dealer, psychiatrist, other medical practitioners, judicial and other legal professionals, mining engineer, financial investment advisor or manager, and chief executive or managing director.

Three things separate those figures from a salary. The first is that they are averages rather than medians. Across everyone who lodged a tax return that year the average taxable income was $78,127, while the median, the person right in the middle, was $58,739. A small number of very high earners lifts an average, and in a profession as small as surgery it lifts it a long way. The guide to the average salary in Australia goes through why average and median produce such different figures.

The second is that taxable income is not the same thing as pay. A surgeon with a private practice, a share portfolio and an investment property reports all of it under the one occupation, and a financial dealer's figure takes in bonuses and trading income as well as salary.

The third is that the occupation is whatever the taxpayer wrote on the return. The list counts 4,280 surgeons and 237,166 chief executives and managing directors, because anyone running their own company can use that title. That is why the chief executive average is $200,418 rather than a figure that reflects the boards of listed companies.

Highest paying jobs in Australia by median pay

The table below takes a different approach. It ranks occupations by median full-time earnings, using Jobs and Skills Australia occupation data from February 2026. The median is the person in the middle of the pay range for that job, so it is the closest available measure of what a typical full-timer earns before tax.

Two limits are worth holding on to as you read it. The figures cover employees only, so partners, contractors and business owners are not in them. And roles in the same occupation group share a figure, because that is how the source data is published.

Every role links through to its full page. You can sort by pay, hours or projected growth, and filter to roles you could realistically move into.

For a sense of scale, the ABS puts median full-time earnings across all employees at about $90,500 a year. That comes from a different collection and a different reference period to the occupation medians, so it works as a rough benchmark rather than a like-for-like comparison. Of the 264 occupations in the table, 178 sit above that figure, 19 are above $150,000 and only surgeons are above $200,000.

Highest paying jobs without a degree

Set the filter to "No degree needed" and the top of the list is mining, energy and rail. Most of these roles need a certificate, a licence or a ticket, and a couple need nothing formal at all. What they tend to ask for instead is long weeks, so the hours are worth reading alongside the pay.

• Construction manager, $195,100 for a 47 hour week. Usually a diploma, often after a trade.
• Gas plant operator and refinery operator, $183,700 for 51 hours. Certificate-level entry and shift work.
• Crane operator, $177,400 for 50 hours. A high risk work licence you can get in weeks.
• Train driver, $156,100 for 44 hours. Rail operators train you in-house.
• Driller, $151,200 for 68 hours, the longest week of any role in the table.
• Miner, $151,200 for 63 hours. No formal qualification, often on a fly-in fly-out roster.
• Auto electrician, $146,000 for 49 hours, after a four-year apprenticeship.
• Powerline worker, $142,000 for 44 hours. An apprenticeship plus a licence.

The hours change how those figures read. A driller's $151,200 divided by a 68 hour week works out to about $43 an hour, which is roughly the median hourly rate across all Australian employees. That is an annual median divided by usual weekly hours rather than an observed hourly rate, so treat it as an indication of how much of the headline figure is paid for time on the job. Where a degree is the entry path instead, the most useful degrees in Australia covers graduate outcomes by study area.

What jobs pay over $200,000, $300,000 and $500,000?

The answer depends on which measure you are reading. By typical full-time pay, one occupation clears $200,000, and that is surgeons at $203,100. The next group, between $175,000 and $195,000, includes construction managers, gas plant and refinery operators, engineering managers, mining engineers, barristers, crane operators and ship captains.

Above $300,000, the only occupation-level figures that exist are the ATO averages, and only surgeons and anaesthetists reach them. People earning that much as a salary tend to be individuals rather than whole occupations: partners in law and accounting firms, senior executives at listed companies, specialists with a private practice, and contractors on daily rates. No published dataset ranks them by job title.

No occupation reaches an average above $1 million. The highest ATO average is $519,998.

What to weigh up alongside the pay

A salary figure is one condition of a job among several, and the table puts four of the others next to it.

• Years before you earn it: the medical roles at the top need a medical degree, an internship and a specialist training program, which together run past ten years. The entry column shows which roles are open, which need a ticket, and which need registration that can't be shortcut.
• Hours: the mining and rail roles pay for 50 to 68 hour weeks, while the engineering and finance management roles sit closer to 45.
• Where the job is going: projected growth to 2035 sits next to every row. Driller and miner are projected to grow about 6% over ten years, while dentist, physiotherapist and surgeon are above 30%.
• How much of the work AI can do: pay and automation exposure are separate measures, and some of the best paid desk jobs are among the more exposed.

What $200,000 looks like after tax

A $200,000 salary does not land as $200,000. In 2026-27 it leaves about $140,000 after income tax and the Medicare levy, or about $137,000 if you don't hold hospital cover and pay the surcharge. Super is paid on top of the salary rather than out of it.

If you are weighing up a move towards one of these roles, start with the table, read the hours and the entry requirements next to the pay, and run the figure through the calculator before you decide. It does the same sum for any salary in the table, including study loan repayments and salary sacrifice if you have them.