What the figures are

All figures are base salary in Australian dollars. They exclude superannuation, which is 12 per cent from 1 July 2025 and unchanged for 2026-27, and they exclude the package on top, which means housing, a vehicle and bonuses. Figures are current as at June 2026. Each band shows a low, a typical and a high, rounded to the nearest $5,000. We do not publish package totals as headline figures; where corporate packages commonly reach a level the evidence supports, the role page says so in prose.

The evidence

Every band draws on more than one class of evidence, and no band rests on a single data point. The order below is the order of weight.

March Talent Partners placement and benchmarking data, and direct market knowledge. Our own permanent placements and salary benchmarking across broadacre, horticulture, livestock and cotton from 2024 to 2026, and what we see day to day recruiting in the professionalised and corporate market. This is what anchors the bands.

Current advertised pay. Job ads with a disclosed salary, captured across SEEK, Jora and agricultural job boards through 2025 and 2026, used as supporting reference. The advertised market skews to smaller and lower-paying operations, so where it sits below our bands the role page says so rather than pulling the band down to it.

Neutral published data. Fair Work award rates as the legal floor, Jobs and Skills Australia shortage data, and figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, ABARES and industry peak bodies including Irrigation Australia, Cotton Australia, the National Farmers’ Federation and Meat and Livestock Australia, used as corroboration.

We do not reproduce other firms’ salary surveys or guides. Where a survey informs our read, the figure is checked against our own data and neutral sources before it goes near a band.

What the terms mean

Typical. Where the advertised pay and our placements cluster. It is not a statistical median, and we do not use percentiles. Read the typical as the number most operations land on for a competent hire at standard scope, with the low and high marking the range around it.

Tiers. Several roles are tiered by operation scale rather than by title or by who owns the business, because scale moves pay more than the name on the contract or the ownership model. We use three scale tiers. Single property or smaller operation: a single operation at the smaller end, and the bottom band. Large or multi-property operation: a large single property or a multi-property operation with employed management; large private and family-owned agribusinesses commonly sit here or above and pay at the top of the scale. Large-scale or portfolio operation: large-scale or portfolio operations, distinguished by size of footprint, team and complexity, not ownership; this includes corporate, institutional and large private or family-owned operations at scale. We tier by size of property, team, crop or head and by location, never by who owns the operation. A role with no meaningful scale separation in the evidence publishes as a single national band, and the operational and supervisory roles do so with a qualitative driver line.

Remoteness. Remote and very remote postings can carry a premium, usually 10 to 15 per cent, anchored to the Australian Bureau of Statistics remoteness structure. At management level the premium often shows up in the base; at operational level it more often shows up as housing, keep and longer paid hours rather than a higher base. The role page says which. We reference Australian Taxation Office zones only for fringe benefits tax and housing mechanics, not as a pay measure.

Award rates are a floor, not a market rate

Award minimums set the legal floor, not the going rate. The Pastoral Award 2020 (MA000035) covers broadacre and livestock roles, and the Horticulture Award 2020 (MA000028) covers tree crops and intensive horticulture. Award rates rise 4.75 per cent from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026 under the Fair Work Commission’s 2026 review. Award figures cited in this guide are stated at the rate current on the page, with the effective date shown. Every management and supervisory band in this guide sits well above the award floor.

Housing, vehicle and tax

Most management and many operational roles in regional agriculture include housing, a vehicle, or both. The role pages give indicative values: housing commonly $20,000 to $35,000 a year, a vehicle $8,000 to $25,000 depending on private-use rights. These are guides to value, not offers. Where housing is provided as a condition of employment in a remote area, a fringe benefits tax exemption may apply under section 58ZC of the Fringe Benefits Tax Assessment Act 1986. Whether it applies, and how any benefit is treated, depends on the location and the arrangement, and should be confirmed with a qualified tax adviser.

What this guide reads against

These bands describe the external hiring market: what an operation pays to attract and hold a permanent employee in an open market, not what existing staff currently earn or what an internal pay structure sets. Read them as the cost of hiring, against a specific brief. The guide covers on-farm production roles only; off-farm roles such as agronomy, finance and corporate positions are outside its scope.

The aggregate base

The guide draws first on March Talent Partners placement and benchmarking work from 2024 to 2026 across broadacre, horticulture, livestock and cotton, supported by a corpus of advertised roles with disclosed pay and by published award and peak-body data. It is refreshed yearly against the same method, on stable role pages.