Surgeon Salary Australia 2026 — Earnings by Specialty and Take-Home Pay

Which award or agreement sets a surgeon's pay?

Surgeons employed by state public hospitals are staff specialists on their state's specialist scale, which is the same for every specialty. The NSW, Victorian and Queensland scales are below.

Surgeons employed by private hospitals and the other employers the Medical Practitioners Award covers (cl 4.2) have a specialist minimum of $121,535 a year from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026 (cl 16.1(h)); surgical registrars in training are registrars under the same award.

Surgeons in private practice on their own account are not employees. Visiting medical officer arrangements with public hospitals are separate from the staff specialist scales and are not reproduced here.

Registrar and specialist minimums under the award are on our doctor pay rates page.

Surgeon salary in Australia: the ATO’s 2023–24 figures

Every year the ATO publishes what people earned, grouped by the occupation they put on their tax return. The 2023–24 figures (released on 17 June 2026) are the most recent. For unit group 2535, Surgeon (all nine surgical occupations), 4,280 people reported an average taxable income of $519,998 and a median of $403,069. Those who were paid a salary or wage had an average of $238,223 and a median of $200,000 from it.

Taxable income is everything a person earned — salary, business and contracting income, investments — less their deductions; the ATO’s averages and medians for it include everyone in the occupation, whatever hours they worked. Salary or wages is only what employers paid, and its figures cover only the people who were paid one. Neither is a full-time salary rate.

What full-time employed surgeons earn

Jobs and Skills Australia puts median full-time earnings for Surgeons (ANZSCO 2535) at $3,905 a week ($80 an hour), about $203,060 a year. It also reports that 93% of people in the group work full-time hours, and that full-time workers average 54 hours a week.

It covers employees only. Surgeons in private practice on their own account are not in it, while the ATO figures above count everyone who gave surgeon as their occupation.

Median weekly pay of full-time, non-managerial adult employees before tax and salary sacrifice, from the ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours (May 2025) as published by Jobs and Skills Australia. It reflects what employers actually pay, including people on enterprise agreements or above-award salaries, so it is a market figure, not a legal minimum.

Public hospital staff specialist salaries

A surgeon employed by a state public hospital is a staff specialist, paid on the same salary scale as every other specialty in that state. The scales below are the base salaries each state publishes, before the allowances most staff specialists also receive. We show only the states whose schedule we have read from the official source.

Salary packaging in a public hospital

Public hospital employees can package part of their salary before tax under a $17,000 grossed-up fringe benefits tax cap — about $9,010 a year of everyday expenses such as rent or a mortgage. On a $197,583 salary, packaging the full amount leaves about $4,121 more to spend each year, before the packaging provider’s fees. It lowers the taxable income on your payment summary but raises your reportable fringe benefits, which count towards HELP repayments and the Medicare levy surcharge. See the salary packaging guide for how it works.

Surgeon salary after tax

What each figure above leaves after income tax and the Medicare levy at 2026–27 rates, treating it as taxable income with no deductions. The ATO figures are from 2023–24, so this shows what the same income takes home today, not what it took home then.

2026–27 resident tax rates with the low income tax offset and the 2% Medicare levy, assuming private hospital cover (without it, the Medicare levy surcharge adds up to 1.5% at these incomes — check yours with the Medicare levy surcharge calculator). The last column is the compulsory repayment if you still have a HELP debt; it comes out of take-home pay on top of tax. Super is paid on top by an employer at 12%. Above $250,000 of income plus concessional super, an extra 15% applies to your super contributions — billed by the ATO after your tax return, not withheld from pay (see Division 293 tax).

For the full breakdown at the median, see take-home pay on $400,000 (the nearest step to $403,069), or put in your own salary below.

What a surgeon’s pay looks like on a payslip

An employed surgeon gets a payslip each pay day showing gross pay, the PAYG tax withheld (which already allows for the Medicare levy), any HELP repayment withheld, and the super the employer paid on top. Check the tax withheld against the tax withheld calculator and each line against understanding your payslip.

The ATO's median salary or wage for surgeons, $200,000, works out to about $5,390 a fortnight after tax and the Medicare levy. Income from private practice is not on that payslip; tax on it is paid through PAYG instalments or at tax time.

Contracting rather than employed? Compare the two with the contractor pay calculator.

What this page does not show

• Staff specialist scales for WA, SA, Tasmania, the ACT and the NT, and Queensland's L22 to L29, which we have not read from an official source.
• Visiting medical officer arrangements and private practice fees, which depend on the individual arrangement.
• Specialty figures by state: the ATO publishes states only for surgeons as a whole.

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