QLD Government Pay Rates 2026 — AO, PO, TO and OO Salary Scales

Who sets these rates

The Queensland Public Service Officers and Other Employees Award – State 2015 sets the classification structure — administrative (AO), professional (PO), technical (TO) and operational (OO) streams, each with numbered pay points — and the award rate for each point. Certified agreements set rates for the entities they cover, and an employee is always paid at least the award rate.

Award rates rose 4.75% from 1 September 2026. The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission's 2026 State Wage Case ([2026] QIRC 280, delivered 4 September 2026) ordered that "the wages or salaries for full-time adult employees in all state awards shall be increased by 4.75%", operative on and from 1 September 2026, and set the Queensland minimum wage at $1,004.90 a week. Separately, the State Government Entities Certified Agreement 2023 nominally expired on 30 June 2026 and continues to apply until it is replaced; the government's offer of at least 8.5% over the life of a replacement agreement lapsed when the unions did not accept it by 31 July 2026, so the backdating of a first increase to 1 July 2026 is no longer on the table.

Across the schedule below, published salaries run from $43,386 to $163,552. Every figure on this page is transcribed from the instrument named beside it and was checked on 23 September 2026. Where a level could not be read from a primary source it is left out and listed further down rather than estimated.

Queensland pay scales

How progression between pay points works

Queensland classifications are written as level and pay point — AO3/2, PO4/1, OO5/3. Each level contains several incremental pay points, and the Department of Education states plainly that each classification level contains incremental progression points; the certified agreement and the directives issued for the public sector set when you move up one, not the salary schedule itself.

The width of a level matters more in Queensland than in most services because the levels overlap. AO6/4 and PO4/4 both pay $134,019 under the award from 1 September 2026, and AO7 and PO5 are identical at every pay point, so a move between streams at the equivalent level is not a pay rise. AO2 is the longest ladder, with eight pay points spanning $63,814 to $75,997 — more than $12,000 without a promotion.

An employee is never paid below the award. Where an agreement rate has fallen behind an award increase, the award rate applies instead — and after the 4.75% award increase from 1 September 2026 that now happens at many pay points. The Department of Education's AO3 agreement rates from 1 September 2026, for example, run from $80,505 to $89,326, below the award's $81,032 to $89,903, so the award rate is what an AO3 there is paid.

Senior officer (SO) roles sit above AO8 and are award-free, with conditions set by directive rather than by the award schedule, so they are not included in the tables above.

Superannuation on top of the band

The Queensland Government's employer superannuation contribution is 12.75% for employees under 75 — above the Superannuation Guarantee rate. It is paid on ordinary time earnings including paid leave and ordinary-time allowances such as shift allowances and weekend penalties. On an AO5/1 award salary of $109,704 that is $13,987 a year of employer super, and the 0.75 percentage points above the guarantee rate is worth about $823 a year.

The Superannuation Guarantee minimum is 12.0% from 1 July 2025, so a public sector employer contribution above that rate is real money you should count when you compare offers. Our superannuation calculator and superannuation guide work through the difference over a career.

What the band is worth after tax

The salaries above are gross. To check a payslip you need the figure after income tax, the Medicare levy and any study loan repayment. The mid-band link in each row opens the nearest published take-home page, and the calculators below take your exact salary:

• Income tax calculator — tax and Medicare levy on an exact salary.
• Take-home pay calculator — weekly, fortnightly and monthly net pay.
• Fortnightly pay calculator — most public service payrolls pay fortnightly, and the classification tables above are published as fortnightly rates.
• Pay rise calculator — what an increment or an agreement increase is worth in the hand.
• Salary sacrifice calculator — public sector employers commonly offer packaging; this shows the tax effect.
• Understanding your payslip — how a classification and pay point appear on the payslip itself.

What this page does not cover

These are the rates we could not read from a primary source. Nothing here is estimated in their place:

• Queensland Health's own wage rate schedules. health.qld.gov.au did not load on the verification date, so nothing on this page is sourced from it. The nursing figures shown come from the certified agreement schedule published by the Department of Education, and only for the classifications that appear there — check the Queensland Health wage rates pages for the registered nurse grades, medical officers, dental officers and the health practitioner (HP) stream.
• The State Government Entities Certified Agreement 2023 (Core Agreement) wage schedule, which covers most Queensland departments. The published agreement is a large PDF we could not read in full, so its rates are not reproduced. It continues to apply until a replacement is certified.
• Senior officer (SO) salary rates, which are award-free and set by directive.
• Health practitioner (HP) stream rates. They appear in the departmental schedule but without a named agreement in that document, so they are not published here.

Queensland pay questions