Hourly pay is where the Australian market is most honest and least discussed. A salary can hide behind a package figure; an hourly rate cannot. So here is what $25 an hour really is, measured against the whole workforce.
Is $25 an hour good pay in Australia?
No — it sits at about the 10th percentile. ABS puts the 10th percentile of hourly earnings at $24.94 for August 2025, so $25 an hour is within cents of the bottom tenth of the market. Roughly 10% of Australian employees earn less. The median employee earns $42.86 an hour.
Where $25 an hour sits in the distribution
| Hourly band | Employees | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $15 | 218,000 | 1.8% |
| $15 – under $25 | 1,041,000 | 8.5% |
| $25 – under $35 | 2,763,000 | 22.6% |
| $35 – under $45 | 2,505,000 | 20.5% |
| $45 – under $55 | 1,590,000 | 13.0% |
| $55 – under $65 | 1,146,000 | 9.4% |
| $65 – under $75 | 733,000 | 6.0% |
| $75 and over | 2,203,000 | 18.1% |
Only about one in ten employees earns less than $25 an hour, and nearly one in five earns $75 or more. The Australian hourly market has a long tail upward and a hard floor beneath — that floor is the national minimum wage, which was $24.95 an hour from 1 July 2025. In other words, $25 an hour is essentially the legal minimum.
What $25 an hour is per week, month and year
| Hours per week | Weekly | Annual (×52) |
|---|---|---|
| 20 hours | $500 | $26,000 |
| 30 hours | $750 | $39,000 |
| 38 hours (standard full-time) | $950 | $49,400 |
| 40 hours | $1,000 | $52,000 |
A full-time year at $25 an hour is about $49,400 — roughly $41,100 below the $90,500 full-time median. Casual loading changes the picture: a 25% loading takes the same work to $31.25 an hour, or about $61,750 annualised, in exchange for no paid leave and no notice.
Is $2,000 a week good in Australia?
It is above the middle. $2,000 a week is $104,000 a year, which lands near the 57th percentile for full-time non-managerial adult employees. It works out to about $52.60 an hour on a 38-hour week — well clear of the $47.37 full-time median hourly rate.
| Weekly (before tax) | Annual | Roughly the… |
|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | $52,000 | below the 10th percentile |
| $1,442 | $75,000 | 25th percentile |
| $1,852 | $96,300 | median |
| $2,000 | $104,000 | 57th percentile |
| $2,458 | $127,800 | 75th percentile |
| $3,194 | $166,100 | 90th percentile |
The gap hourly workers should actually watch
Casual and permanent pay diverge more than most people realise. Among full-time non-managerial adults, permanent and fixed-term employees have a median of $1,862 a week against $1,617 for casuals — a gap of about $12,700 a year, before you count leave, notice and super stability. If you are casual and doing permanent-shaped work, that gap is the conversation.
And if you are weighing hourly work against a salary, the honest comparison is total cost of time, not headline rate. The same logic applies to contracting — see contractor day rate vs permanent salary.
Check your own rate
Award rates set a floor, not a ceiling, and plenty of hourly roles pay above the award for the same duties. Run a free salary check with your role and city to see where your annualised pay lands, or work through the full Australian percentile table first.
$25 an hour is not a bad rate. It is the floor of the Australian market — and the floor is a place to start, not to stay.
Hourly and weekly distributions from ABS Employee Earnings (August 2025) and ABS Employee Earnings and Hours (May 2025). Check the current minimum wage with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
