IT & Tech Salary Guide — What Tech Workers Earn in Australia

Tech Salaries by Role: What Tax Returns Show

The ATO’s Taxation statistics 2023–24 report the median salary or wages of everyone who gave each occupation on their tax return. The table lists all 17 tech occupations our role pages carry, highest median first. Each role page adds any award minimum that can apply and take-home pay on each figure.

These figures are national. For earnings by state and territory across all industries, from ABS data, see Average Salary Australia. Base salary is not the whole package at some employers: RSUs and share options have their own tax rules, covered below.

Contractor vs Permanent

Tech roles are offered both as permanent jobs and as contracts, billed through an ABN (sole trader) or a Pty Ltd company. A contractor’s day rate has to cover what an employer would otherwise pay on top of salary: the Super Guarantee, the leave and public holidays an employee is paid for without working, and costs such as insurance and accounting.

What Day Rate Matches a Salary? Our Calculation

The table works back from an employee package (salary plus 12% super, with paid leave inside the salary) to the day rate a contractor must charge over 230 billable days to earn the same. It uses the same method as our Contractor Pay Calculator.

Of the $110,000 salary, $12,692 is pay for the 30 days of annual leave and public holidays an employee is paid for without working; the contractor funds those days out of the 230 they bill. Allow for 10 sick days and 10 days between contracts as well, the defaults in the Contractor Pay Calculator, and billable days fall to 210: the day rates rise to $601 and $815.

ABN vs Pty Ltd Considerations

Sole traders (ABN) are simpler to set up and pay tax at personal marginal rates on all business income. A Pty Ltd company has its own tax rate, 25% for a base rate entity in 2025–26 (ATO), but income produced mainly from your own skills or effort is personal services income (PSI). If the PSI rules apply, the company must attribute that income to you and it is taxed at your marginal rates. A company also carries its own accounting and reporting costs. Use the Contractor vs Employee Calculator and the Entity Structure Comparison to model the best structure for your situation.

Salary Packaging & Perks

Pay in tech can include more than base salary. Two parts with their own tax rules are employee share scheme interests, such as RSUs and share options, and salary sacrifice into super.

Stock Options & RSUs

RSUs and employee share options are employee share scheme (ESS) interests: rights to acquire shares in your employer. The ATO treats the discount, the market value of the interests less anything you paid for them, as assessable income taxed at your marginal rate. Your employer must give you an ESS statement showing the amount by 14 July after the end of each financial year.

When it is taxed depends on the scheme. Under a taxed-upfront scheme, the discount is income in the year you acquire the interests. Under a tax-deferred scheme, such as one where unvested units are forfeited if you leave, it is income in the year of the deferred taxing point, valued at that time. For a right acquired after 30 June 2015, that is the earliest of:

• when there is no real risk of forfeiting the right and the scheme no longer genuinely restricts disposing of it;
• when you exercise the right, there is no real risk of forfeiting the resulting share and the scheme no longer genuinely restricts disposing of that share;
• 15 years after you acquired the right.

For RSUs that convert on vesting into shares you are free to sell, that is the vesting date. Leaving your job is no longer a taxing point where employment ends on or after 1 July 2022. If you sell within 30 days of the deferred taxing point, the sale date becomes the taxing point. Otherwise the shares are treated as acquired at their market value at the taxing point, so a later sale falls under capital gains tax, with the 50% CGT discount if you own them for at least 12 months from that point. Source: ATO, tax-deferred employee share schemes.

Salary Sacrifice for Super

Salary sacrificed into super is a concessional contribution, taxed at 15% inside the fund instead of at your marginal rate. In FY2026-27 the marginal rate is 30% on income from $45,001 to $135,000 and 37% from $135,001 to $190,000, plus the 2% Medicare levy. If your income plus concessional contributions exceeds $250,000, Division 293 tax adds a further 15% on the lesser of those contributions and the amount over the threshold. The concessional contribution cap is $32,500 per year in FY2026-27 (including employer SG). Use the Salary Sacrifice Calculator to model the tax savings for your salary level.

Take-Home Pay on a Tech Salary

On a salary of $150,000 a year, income tax and the Medicare levy come to approximately $39,570 for FY2026-27, leaving a take-home pay of approximately $110,430 per year ($4,247 per fortnight). Superannuation at 12% adds $18,000, bringing the total package to $168,000.

On $110,000, take-home pay is approximately $84,280 per year ($3,242 per fortnight) after tax and Medicare. At this income level, salary sacrificing $10,000 into super saves approximately $1,700 a year after the 15% contributions tax.

Frequently Asked Questions