Gender pay equity dashboard
Actively progressing gender pay equity is a key element of the Public Sector Act 2022.
Gender equity
'Equity' is about recognising and enacting the strategies needed to achieve equal outcomes. This means allocating resources and opportunities in ways that allow people to reach their full potential. Gender equity recognises that women face a range of challenges and may require extra help to create fair and equal outcomes. Gender equity ‘levels the playing field’ so gender equality can be achieved (1).
Gender equality
'Equality' is about ensuring everyone has an equal opportunity to reach their potential and receive equal treatment. For gender, this means ensuring equal treatment of women, men, and people of other genders in all aspects of their lives, without allowing gender stereotyping to affect or restrict their rights and choices.
Gender pay gap
The gender pay gap measures the difference between average annual earnings of women and men in the workforce. The gender pay gap is an internationally established measure of women’s position in the economy in comparison to men. The gender pay gap is the result of social and economic factors that combine to reduce women’s earning capacity (2).
Workforce composition
As at June 2025 (3), women comprise 68.91% of the workforce compared with 69.33% at June 2024.
The proportion of women in each agency varies considerably.
The proportion of women is greatest in the Department of Education, the Department of Families, Seniors, Disability Services and Child Safety and Queensland Health.
Combined, the Department of Education and Queensland Health make up 73,24% of the Queensland public sector. Given their workforces identify predominantly as women, the sector is predominantly female.
There are 14 departments in which the proportion of women is lower than that of the whole of sector.
The Queensland Fire Department, Queensland Police Service and the Department of Primary Industries have the lowest proportion of women in their workforce.
Gender disparity across levels
While women occupy more than 70% of roles at the AO3-AO6 level (6), this proportion drops in the high classifications.
The proportion of women in SES and equivalent roles falls to 44.55%.
| AO1 | AO2 | AO3 | AO4 | AO5 | AO6 | AO7 | AO8 | SO | SES+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woman | 29.82% | 63.36% | 71.56% | 73.95% | 72.82% | 72.95% | 65.58% | 66.44% | 63.92% | 44.55% |
| Man | 69.70% | 36.00% | 27.81% | 25.45% | 26.57% | 26.07% | 33.55% | 32.80% | 35.54% | 55.07% |
| Non-binary | 0.14% | 0.14% | 0.20% | 0.25% | 0.24% | 0.14% | 0.43% | 0.22% | 0.10% | 0.19% |
| Not disclosed | 0.34% | 0.49% | 0.41% | 0.34% | 0.36% | 0.84% | 0.43% | 0.53% | 0.43% | 0.18% |
| Another Term | 0.00% | 0.01% | 0.01% | 0.01% | 0.01% | 0.00% | 0.01% | 0.00% | 0.01% | 0.01% |
Women in leadership classifications
The Queensland public sector has adapted a target of 50% for women in leadership role.
Women in leadership are defined as being women at the Senior Officer, Senior Executive Service and Chief Executive Classification levels.
At June 2025, 56.02% of people at these leadership levels were women.
This is an increase from 54.88% at June 2024 (7).
While the proportion of women applying for executive roles is only 39.60%, 58.13% of successful appointments are women.
Gender pay gap (as if working full-time)
The gender pay gap does not mean that men and women aren't paid the same for performing the same work or for performing different work of equal or comparable value.
Rather, it calculates the difference between the average pay of men and women across the workforce. The gender pay gap for the Queensland public sector continues to narrow, due to concerted efforts in Queensland to address the drivers of gender equality.
It demonstrates that the gap in earnings of 4.85% in the Queensland public sector is substantially lower than the national gender pay gap of 11.5%. It must be noted that the measure methodology varies slightly, primarily due to data availability (8).
Further, it demonstrates a rapid reduction in the gender pay gap on base salary in the past 5 years 7.35% in 2021 to 4.85% in 2025. This base salary calculation removes additional factors such as allowances and focuses on the core value or base salary of the job, which gives a clearer indication of where women are placed in the classification levels and career structures.
What causes the gender pay gap? (8)
- Conscious and unconscious discrimination and bias in hiring decisions
- Female-dominated industries historically attracting lower wages
- Lack of workplace flexibility
- Higher rates of part-time work for women
- Women may spend more time out of the workforce for caring responsibilities
- Women may have a disproportionate share of unpaid caring and domestic work
Gender pay gap by department
This section outlines the gender pay of the Queensland public sector workforce for Departments.
The gender pay gap is largest in the Queensland Fire Department and it also represents an organisation where women earn more than men.
- This disparity is due to occupational segregation.
- Men represent 90.65% of firefighters (key frontline roles), while women predominantly work in frontline/frontline support and higher paying corporate roles.
In contrast, the Queensland Health workforce is predominantly women (73.62%), but has the lowest gender pay gap of 11.74%.
- This disparity is also caused by occupational segregation and specifically, underrepresentation of women in higher classification levels.
Gender pay gap by age
Women under the age of 34 have higher full time equivalent earnings than men.
The pay gap continues to grow until the 55-59 age group, drops in the 60-64 age gap, before increasing again.
Base salary
Base salary refers to the average salary of employees over a year period and does not include allowances.
Earnings
Earnings are calculated on the salary and regular allowances paid to employees, typically including SES motor vehicle allowances, locality allowances and higher duties. Shift allowances and penalty rates can be regular allowances but not always. Average annual earnings do not include one-off or sporadic payments such as travelling allowances. Information on earnings is collected as at the quarterly snapshot date and is extrapolated over a 12-month period.
Gender pay gap
The methodology for gender pay gap in the Queensland public sector is the difference between the average annual earnings for male and female employees, as a proportion of male average annual earnings. Earnings includes base salary and regular allowances. Earnings reflect employees’ full-time earnings (regardless of whether the employee works part‑time).
Minimum Obligatory Human Resource Information (MOHRI)
MOHRI is the methodology used for the collection and reporting of data on a quarterly basis. It is used to provide information on the Queensland public sector workforce profile, including (but not limited to) data on age, gender, occupation, employment status, location and leave. forgov.qld.gov.au/minimum-obligatory-human-resource-information-mohri
SO, SES and CE classification levels
SO, SES, and CE are acronyms that are used within the Queensland public sector if referring to senior officers, senior executive service and chief executive level.
CALD
Culturally and linguistically diverse.
CALD 1
Born overseas.
CALD 2
Speak a language at home other than English.
References
- Department of Justice and Attorney-General, 2022, Queensland women’s strategy 2022-2027, Queensland government
- Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), 2022, The gender pay gap, Australian Government.
- Minimum Obligatory Human Resource Information (MOHRI), June 2025 workforce data.
- Non-binary, another term and not disclosed gender data may not be visible in some graphs due to low representation.
- Agency figures include Norfolk Island Taskforce employees
- Queensland public sector figures are based on equivalent classifications across administrative (AO), operational (OO), technical (TO) and professional (PO) streams.
- The methodology for leadership classifications has been reviewed since publication of data in 2024. To align with the State of the sector reporting leadership figures in 2025 now include employees in s122/s155 classifications
- Gender indicators | Australian Bureau of Statistics. The ABS data collection has a slightly different formula, excluding part-time employees, while the Queensland public sector data collection calculates income for part-time employees as if they were working full-time.
- Last updated:
- 14 October 2025