Hairdresser wages in Australia: award rates, super and what a stylist really costs your salon

What should you pay a newly qualified hairdresser in Brisbane? What does a senior colourist expect in Melbourne, and why does the payslip for the same Saturday shift look so different for a casual and a part-timer? Search "hairdresser wages Australia" and you will mostly find salary aggregators quoting averages built from self-reported samples that mix apprentices, employees, salon managers and chair renters together.

This guide takes the official route instead. In Australia, almost every employed hairdresser is covered by one national instrument, the Hair and Beauty Industry Award 2020 (MA000005), and the Fair Work Ombudsman publishes the exact minimum rates. Every legal figure below was checked on an official government source in October 2026, and all dollar figures in this article are Australian dollars. You will find the award classification levels and their current minimums, the casual loading and penalty rates that reshape weekend payslips, the apprentice ladder, the superannuation layer, what the market actually pays above the award, and what all of it means for your prices and your roster.

One note of transparency first: this blog is published by ViteUneCoupe, a free online booking system for hair salons with 0% commission. Wages are the biggest line in nearly every salon budget, and they only pay for themselves when the chairs are booked. That link between pay and bookings is where this guide ends up.

One national award, not a state patchwork

Unlike minimum wages in many countries, hairdresser pay floors in Australia do not change at state borders. The Hair and Beauty Industry Award 2020 applies nationally to hair and beauty businesses in the national workplace relations system, which covers the vast majority of salons. The main exception worth knowing: a salon in Western Australia run as a sole trader or partnership (not a company) may sit in the WA state industrial relations system with its own state award, so check which system you are in before copying national figures into your pay book.

Two things do vary by state and territory even under the national award: public holidays, because each state and territory gazettes its own dates, so the 250% public holiday rate lands on different days in Queensland than in Victoria; and trading patterns, since the busiest penalty-rate hours depend on local shopping habits.

The rates themselves change every year. The Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review adjusts award minimums with effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July, so any table you find online, including the one below, has a shelf life. Before you set or review pay, confirm the current numbers on the Fair Work Ombudsman's pay guides page or run the exact shift through the official P.A.C.T. pay calculator, which handles levels, loadings and penalties for you.

Award minimum rates by classification level

The award classifies hair and beauty employees into six levels. Broadly: Level 1 covers salon assistants doing reception, basins and general salon duties; Level 2 covers employees performing a defined range of tasks beyond assisting; Level 3 is the benchmark level for a qualified hairdresser holding a Certificate III in Hairdressing; and Levels 4 to 6 cover higher qualifications, senior technical roles and salon management. The exact definitions are in Schedule A of the award, and getting the level right matters, because everything else (casual rates, penalties, apprentice percentages) is calculated from it.

The minimum rates below are the adult full-time rates operative from 1 July 2026, as published in the award on the Fair Work Commission and Fair Work Ombudsman award library, checked in October 2026:

Three reading rules for a salon owner:

• These are floors, not offers. Paying a good Level 3 stylist exactly $29.45 an hour in a capital city is legal, and it is also how you lose them to the salon two streets over.
• The level follows the work, not the job title. If your "junior" is actually cutting and colouring unsupervised with a Certificate III, they are a Level 3, whatever the contract says. Misclassification is one of the most common ways salons end up with a back-pay bill.
• The floor moves every July. A stylist hired fifty cents above minimum is back at minimum after the next Annual Wage Review unless you move them too, and they will notice even if you do not.

Casuals, weekends and public holidays: where payslips really diverge

The headline hourly rate is only the start. Under the award as published in October 2026:

• Casual employees get a 25% loading on the minimum hourly rate for ordinary hours. That loading compensates for no paid annual or personal leave, so never compare a casual's rate to a permanent's rate one-for-one.
• Saturdays attract 133% of the minimum hourly rate for full-time and part-time staff during the Saturday ordinary span, and Sundays attract 200%. For casuals the published award rates are 158% on Saturday and 225% on Sunday, figures that already include the casual loading.
• Public holidays attract 250% of the minimum hourly rate.

Spans of hours, overtime rules and transitional details sit around these percentages, so treat them as the shape of the system rather than a substitute for the pay guide: always confirm the current figures for your exact roster on fairwork.gov.au before payday.

The commercial consequence is blunt. A Saturday, your busiest trading day, costs roughly a third more per staffed hour than a Tuesday, and a Sunday costs double. Rostering is therefore a pricing decision as much as a staffing one: who works the premium days, whether they are permanent or casual, and whether your Saturday column is full enough to carry its loaded cost. We go deeper on that trade-off in our guide to rostering staff in an Australian hair salon.

Apprentices: a percentage ladder, not a single rate

Apprentice pay under the award is built as a percentage of the Level 3 rate (the "standard rate"), rising with each year of the apprenticeship. For a hairdressing apprentice who has not completed Year 12, the award published in October 2026 sets the ladder at 50%, 60%, 77% and 90% of the standard weekly rate across years one to four; apprentices who have completed Year 12 sit on a slightly higher ladder in the early years, and an adult apprentice (21 or over) has a higher floor again, broadly the greater of 80% of the standard rate and the applicable year rate for a new employee. The exact percentages and the competency-based progression rules are in the award and the pay guide, so price an apprenticeship from the current document, not from memory.

Two owner-side realities: an apprentice is the cheapest pair of hands in the salon and the most expensive to supervise, since their chair only earns what your floor training makes of it; and the apprentice ladder is where underpayment claims most often start, because the percentage changes mid-employment and payroll quietly fails to follow. Put the progression dates in your calendar the day the training contract is signed.

Superannuation: 12% on top of everything above

Every wage figure in this article is before superannuation. The superannuation guarantee rate reached 12% from 1 July 2025, the final step of the legislated increase, per the Australian Taxation Office. You pay it on ordinary time earnings for employees regardless of how few hours they work, on top of the gross wage, not out of it.

So a qualified Level 3 full-timer at the award minimum costs at least $1,119.10 plus 12% super, around $1,253 a week, before a single penalty hour, before annual leave loading where it applies, before workers compensation premiums (a state-based insurance with its own hairdressing industry rate), and before payroll tax if your wages bill is large enough to cross your state's threshold. The hourly rate you quote in an interview is never the number that leaves your bank account.

What hairdressers actually earn above the award

The award is the floor; the market sits above it. The most citable public figure comes from Jobs and Skills Australia's occupation profile for hairdressers, the Australian Government's labour market site, which draws on ABS survey data. As displayed when we checked in October 2026, it reports median full-time earnings for hairdressers of around $1,209 per week, roughly $32 per hour, across about 65,000 employed hairdressers, around half of them part-time. JSA notes this ANZSCO-based occupation data is no longer being updated, so treat it as the best available official snapshot rather than a live figure.

Read against the award table, that median says the typical experienced full-time hairdresser earns a little above the Level 3 minimum, not dramatically above it. The spread around the median is where real negotiations happen: senior colourists and stylists who bring a loyal book command more, usually through a commission component rather than a big base, and metropolitan salons chasing talent pay more than the national median suggests. Ignore the private salary sites quoting precise national averages; none of them publish a methodology that survives contact with the distinction between an employee and a chair renter.

Commission in Australian salons: motivator, not a wage substitute

Plenty of Australian salons layer commission on top of a base wage: a percentage of service revenue above a weekly threshold, a percentage of retail product sales, or a tiered scheme that rises with the column's takings. Done well, it aligns the stylist's income with the salon's revenue and gives your best people a reason to rebook their clients rather than let them drift.

Two rules keep it legal and keep it friendly:

• The award still applies underneath. For an employee, base plus commission must leave every pay period at or above the award for all hours worked, penalties included. A commission-only deal with no guaranteed floor is not a pay structure for an employee; genuinely commission-style income without a wage floor exists lawfully only through self-employment arrangements such as renting a chair.
• Write it down with worked examples. There is no standard industry percentage, whatever a Facebook group insists. Set yours from your own margins, define exactly what revenue counts (GST-inclusive or not, redone services, discounted packages), and show two sample payslips before anyone signs. Most commission disputes are two honest people remembering the same conversation differently.

Employee or rent-a-chair: two different worlds

Everything above describes employees. The other model in Australian hairdressing is rent-a-chair: the stylist runs their own business inside your salon, keeps their own takings, invoices their own clients and pays you rent or a percentage. No award rates, no super guarantee from you in the ordinary case, no penalty rates, and also no control over their hours, prices or clients, because if you keep that control, the arrangement risks being an employment relationship in disguise, with back pay and super owing. The trade-offs, the tax side and the client-ownership questions have their own dedicated guide to rent-a-chair in an Australian hair salon. Whatever you do, never benchmark a renter's self-employed takings against the employee wage table above: they are different numbers answering different questions.

What this means for your prices, and for your roster

A wage bill is not a cost you absorb; it is a cost your price list either carries or does not. A qualified stylist at a realistic above-award rate, plus 12% super, plus leave, plus the loaded cost of weekend hours, sets a floor under what an hour of their chair time must bring in. If your cut-and-finish price was set two July increases ago, the award has moved underneath it while the menu stood still. Our guide to hair salon prices in Australia works through pricing from costs up rather than from the salon next door across, and if you are still building the full budget, opening a hair salon in Australia covers the other startup lines around wages.

The other half of the equation is occupancy. Whether a chair is booked solid or sits empty through a gappy Tuesday, the wage attached to it is owed in full, and on a Saturday it is owed at 133% or more. That is why the strongest wage lever most salons never pull is simply filling the calendar:

• Per-stylist schedules that bookings respect. In ViteUneCoupe's free plan, every stylist has their own services, hours and schedule, clients book only slots that genuinely exist, and online bookings are unlimited with 0% commission, permanently.
• Self-service booking that fills gaps while you work. Clients book at 10 pm without anyone answering a phone. The Standard plan, from 29 € excl. tax per month with no commitment (billed in euros, so the Australian dollar amount on your card statement moves with the exchange rate and your bank may add a foreign transaction fee), adds confirmation, reminder and thank-you emails plus calendar sync. ViteUneCoupe does not send SMS reminders on any plan, and it does not do payroll or rostering: award interpretation, super and payslips stay with your accountant or payroll software. For the booking side of protecting revenue, our no-show guide for Australian salons starts with the free fixes.

Frequently asked questions

What is the minimum wage for a hairdresser in Australia?

For most employed hairdressers, the floor is set by the Hair and Beauty Industry Award (MA000005), not the national minimum wage. As published in the award in October 2026, a qualified hairdresser (Level 3) has a minimum of $29.45 per hour, with other levels from $27.81 to $32.00. Rates change every 1 July after the Annual Wage Review, so confirm current figures on fairwork.gov.au before setting pay.

How much extra do casual hairdressers get paid?

Casual employees under the award receive a 25% loading on the minimum hourly rate for ordinary hours, compensating for the absence of paid leave. Weekend rates published for casuals (158% Saturday, 225% Sunday in the award as at October 2026) already include that loading. Check the current pay guide or the P.A.C.T. calculator for your exact roster.

What are the weekend penalty rates in a hair salon?

Under the award as published in October 2026, full-time and part-time staff receive 133% on Saturdays and 200% on Sundays within the ordinary spans, and 250% on public holidays. Public holiday dates differ by state and territory. Spans of hours and overtime rules sit around these percentages, so verify your specific shifts on fairwork.gov.au.

How much do apprentice hairdressers get paid?

Apprentice rates are percentages of the Level 3 "standard rate", rising each year of the apprenticeship: 50%, 60%, 77% and 90% across years one to four for an apprentice who has not completed Year 12, per the award as at October 2026, with higher early-year percentages for Year 12 completers and a higher floor for adult apprentices. Always read the current pay guide, and diarise each progression date.

How much superannuation do I pay a hairdresser?

The superannuation guarantee rate is 12% from 1 July 2025, per the ATO. You pay it on ordinary time earnings, on top of the gross wage, for eligible employees regardless of how few hours they work. It is the final step of the legislated increases, but always confirm the current rate on ato.gov.au.

Can I pay a hairdresser commission only?

Not as an employee. Base plus commission must keep every pay period at or above the award for all hours worked, penalty rates included; a pure commission deal with no floor becomes an underpayment the first quiet week. Commission-style income without a wage floor exists lawfully only through genuine self-employment, such as a properly structured rent-a-chair arrangement.