Australian Salary Comparison 2026: Which City Pays Most?

How does pay compare across Australia's biggest cities? This report shows the average advertised salary for a range of common roles across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. The figures come from live job listings and refresh daily, so they reflect what employers are offering right now rather than a once-a-year survey.

A note on reading these numbers: an advertised salary is the pay attached to a job ad, which tends to sit higher than the typical earnings of everyone already in the role, because ads skew toward mid-level and senior positions. Treat these as a benchmark for what's on offer in each city's current market.

Across the roles tracked here, Perth currently has the highest average advertised salary at $144,776. Pay is often driven less by the city itself than by which industries cluster there — resources in Perth, finance in Sydney, and so on.

Average Advertised Salary by Role and City

The highest-paying city for each role is shown in bold. A dash means too few current listings to give a reliable average.

Cities Ranked by Average Pay

1. Perth — $144,776 average advertised
2. Sydney — $136,946 average advertised
3. Brisbane — $131,096 average advertised
4. Melbourne — $129,734 average advertised
5. Adelaide — $119,695 average advertised

How to Use These Figures

Higher pay in one city doesn't always mean you're better off — cost of living, especially housing, varies enormously between capitals. A salary that stretches comfortably in Adelaide may not in Sydney. If you're weighing an interstate move or a pay conversation, see our guide on how to negotiate salary in Australia. For a deeper look at one market, our Perth salary report breaks down pay across many more roles.

Remember Australian salaries are usually quoted before superannuation, which employers pay on top at 12% of ordinary earnings — so always clarify whether an offer is a base salary or a total package.

Methodology

Figures are the mean advertised salary for each role in each city, matched by exact job title and sourced from the Adzuna job-listings API, which aggregates vacancies from across the major Australian job boards and employer career pages. Averages use listings with salary information plus Adzuna's salary prediction model. Data refreshes daily, so figures move over time, and roles with few current listings in a city show a dash rather than an unreliable average.

Source: Adzuna Australia job-market data. Last updated 1 October 2026 (Perth time). Produced by ProfessionalResume.au and free to cite with a link back to this page.