Admin and reception award wage calculator

Step 1 — read the duties for this level

The award classifies on the work performed, not the job title. These are the award's own words for this level. The indicative-role list covers every Support Services role, not only administrative ones, and the same title can appear at more than one level where the award separates them by duties rather than by name.

Compare every level side by side

This is the part worth doing properly. The step between two adjacent levels is usually one line in this table — how much accountability the role carries, how closely it is supervised, whether the person directs anyone. Find the row where your employee stops matching and starts matching the next one along. The selected level is highlighted, and clicking any column selects that level. All nine levels are here — scroll the table sideways to see the rest.

This table is our compression of the award's classification definitions, written so they can be compared in one view. The full definitions in Schedule A.1 are the ones that govern, and they are quoted in full above for whichever level you select.

Narrow it down

Answer these about the person you have in mind and the levels whose definitions match will be highlighted. This narrows nine levels down to one or two so you know where to look; the call itself stays yours, against the full definition. Read it before you settle on a level.

Step 2 — the rate that follows

Only once the level is settled. Change the employment type and hours to suit.

Every rate at this level

The rules behind the numbers

This calculator covers Support Services employees other than dental assistants and pathology collectors. Those two groups are Support Services employees and they appear in the award's role lists at Levels 3, 5, 6 and 7 — but the award sets their minimum rates separately, and the figures here are not their rates. It also does not cover health professionals: physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists and the rest sit on a separate classification structure and separate rates again.

First check the award applies to you at all

MA000027 covers employers in the health industry — businesses delivering health care, medical or dental services — and their employees in the classifications listed in Schedule A. A private allied health practice is squarely inside that. Two things displace it. If your practice has a registered enterprise agreement, that agreement sets the pay, not this award, and the figures here are only the reference point the agreement had to be tested against. And where an employer is covered by more than one award, the employee is covered by the classification most appropriate to the work they do and the environment they do it in. Settle coverage before you settle a level. MA000027 cl 4.1, cl 4.2, cl 4.6, cl 4.7

The job title does not set the level — the duties do

Every employee covered by the award must be classified according to the structure and definitions in Schedule A, and those definitions turn on the routines the employee works within, the accountability and discretion they carry, the supervision they work under, and the training or experience the role requires. The role names in the award are indicative, not definitional. The employer must also tell the employee their classification in writing when they start, and again whenever it changes. MA000027 cl 12.1, cl 12.2, Schedule A.1

Admin pay does not move on a timer — but service can still change the level

Only Levels 8 and 9 have more than one pay point, so below Level 8 there is no automatic movement within a level. Getting a higher rate means being reclassified, and the employer has to confirm the new classification in writing. That does not make service irrelevant, and this is the part that is easy to miss: some of the award's own indicative roles are defined by length of service. A general clerk or typist is an indicative Level 1 role at entry, an indicative Level 2 role between three months and one year of service, and an indicative Level 3 role in their second and subsequent years. Where a role is described that way, the classification follows the facts, so a long-serving front-desk employee can be sitting a level below where the award puts them. Where a level does have pay points, progression is by annual movement for a full-time employee, or after 1824 hours of similar experience for a part-time or casual employee. MA000027 cl 16.1, Schedule A.1.1–A.1.3; [2026] FWCFB 123 at [73]

The October 2026 reclassification does not touch these rates

The AQF-based classification structure, the profession schedule and the staged wage increases running to 2030 all sit in the health professional stream. Support Services employees stay on Schedule A.1 and clause 16.2, and their rates move with the Annual Wage Review each year. There is no phase-in and no staged increase to plan for on this side of the award. The Full Bench said it directly when it dealt with progression: clause 16.1 “continues to apply to Support Services staff covered by the HPSS Award”, and “only Support Services staff classified at Levels 8 and 9 … are affected by clause 16.1 as these are the only classifications where there is movement between pay points in a level”. The decision is linked below — read paragraph [73] yourself. MA000027 cl 16.2, Schedule A.1; [2026] FWCFB 123 at [73]

In some private practices — not all — ordinary hours run to 9pm

Check this against your own discipline before you rely on it. The extended span applies to a day worker in a private medical, dental, pathology, physiotherapy, chiropractic or osteopathic practice: ordinary hours 7.30am to 9.00pm Monday to Friday, and 8.00am to 4.30pm on Saturday. That is the award's own list and it is not a synonym for allied health — an occupational therapy, podiatry, psychology or exercise physiology practice is not named in it, and a day worker there falls under the general span of 6.00am to 6.00pm Monday to Friday. The difference decides whether a 7.00pm shift is ordinary time, so it is worth getting right. Evening work inside the span is ordinary time at the ordinary rate — the shiftwork penalty is for a shiftworker, meaning an employee regularly rostered outside that span. For a day worker, hours worked outside the span are overtime rather than penalty-rate ordinary hours. A shiftworker is the exception: their ordinary hours can sit outside the day-worker span and attract the shift penalty instead. MA000027 cl 2 (shiftworker), cl 13.2(a), cl 13.2(b), cl 25.1, cl 26.3

Casual loading is 25%, and it is already in the casual rates above

For each ordinary hour worked, a casual is paid the minimum hourly rate for their classification and pay point plus a loading of 25% of that rate. It is paid instead of the entitlements casuals are excluded from, not on top of them. On weekends, shiftwork and public holidays the casual is paid the flat percentage shown above and does not also receive the 25% loading. Casual overtime rates do compound — the loading is added to the hourly rate first, then the overtime multiplier is applied. MA000027 cl 11.4, cl 25.3, cl 26.1(b), cl 26.3(b)

The shortest shift you can roster a casual

Three hours. The one exception that shows up in a clinic: cleaners employed in private medical practices have a minimum engagement of two hours. MA000027 cl 11.2, cl 11.3

Part-time hours have to be agreed in writing before they start

A part-time employee is engaged to work less than an average of 38 hours a week with reasonably predictable hours, and before they start, the employer and employee must agree in writing on the number of hours each week, the days of the week, and the start and finish times each day. Any change to that pattern must also be agreed and recorded in writing. Hours worked outside the agreed pattern are overtime unless a variation has been agreed. MA000027 cl 10.1, cl 10.2, cl 10.3, cl 25.1(b)

The weekly rate and the hourly rate do not multiply out exactly

The award publishes both a minimum weekly rate and a minimum hourly rate for each classification. The hourly is the weekly divided by 38 and rounded to the cent, so multiplying it back by 38 lands a few cents either side of the published weekly figure. Both are minimums and both bind. A full-time week is the published weekly rate — that is the figure shown above, not the hourly times 38. Hours worked by a part-time or casual employee are paid at the published hourly rate. MA000027 cl 16.2(a)

What is not in these numbers

These are award minimum wages and nothing else. Superannuation, annual leave and the 17.5% leave loading, personal leave, allowances, penalty rates you have not selected above, and any over-award payment all sit on top. This is the floor a rate cannot go below, not what an employee costs to employ. MA000027 cl 23, cl 24, cl 27.3

All Support Services rates, from 1 July 2026

Full-time and part-time figures are the minimum. Casual figures include the 25% loading.

Check it against the source

Every figure here is the published minimum, and every rule cites the clause it comes from. Both sources are free and public — go and read them.

The award — MA000027, at the Fair Work Ombudsman

Support Services minimum rates are in clause 16.2(a), the classification definitions with the duties for each level are in Schedule A.1, and the hourly-rate summaries are in Schedule C. Every clause cited on this page is in that award.

The pay guides — Fair Work Ombudsman

The published rate tables every figure here is checked against, cell by cell. The one in force for these figures is the MA000027 pay guide effective 1 July 2026.

[2026] FWCFB 123 — the Full Bench decision

The decision that made the health professional changes. Paragraph [73] is the one that matters for admin staff: clause 16.1 continues to apply to Support Services employees, and only Levels 8 and 9 have movement between pay points.