What we found
- Median pay doubles in your first 10 years, and 80% of career pay growth is done by Year 15.
- A 60-hour week pays 20% less per hour than a 40-hour week.
- 1 in 3 people receive no bonus at all, and 7 in 10 don't achieve their target bonus.
- Half of Big 4 employees feel their pay is unfair.
Expect pay rises to taper off after 10 years.
Median pay doubles in your first 10 years, delivering two thirds of your career's pay growth, with 80% done by Year 15.
After 15 years, pay rises come from changing jobs or moving into executive roles.
Working from home will cost you career progression.
Those who work more days in the office have longer weeks and more stress.
The more days you WFH, the longer you stay at the same level. 40% of fully remote workers haven't moved up in three years or more, compared with 22% of those who regularly come into the office.
A 60-hour week pays 20% less per hour than a 40-hour week.
1 in 4 people work 45 hours or more per week. Only 1 in 5 of them earn more than $180K a year.
89% of those working 60+ hours rate their stress above 4+ out of 5.
Same job, same experience. Working in Sydney pays more.
| Experience | Sydney | Melbourne | Brisbane |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 5 years | $100K | $92K | $88K |
| 5 to 10 years | $147K | $140K | $140K |
| 10 to 15 years | $180K | $166K | $161K |
| 15 plus years | $200K | $185K | $184K |
Same employer type and same years in, Sydney beats Melbourne 4 times out of 5. Perth beats Sydney in one industry, Mining, by $22K. Moving from Melbourne to Sydney is about a 5% pay rise for the same job. Brisbane to Sydney is about 8%.
Earning $180K+ means the job comes home with you.
Stress, hours and the inability to switch off all climb with pay.
Above $250K, half cannot switch off.
70% of people earning under $100K say that taking leave is easy. When you earn more than $250K, 55% think it's hard to take leave.
After 10 years, men stop feeling underpaid. Women don't.
The pay gap opens after Year 10. Women with the same industry and experience earn about 7% less than men, and 32% feel underpaid vs 26% of men.
At Year 20, 39% of women feel underpaid, while men stay at 25%.
Support roles keep up for 10 years, then fall behind.
Finance, HR, IT, Legal and Risk keep pace with front office pay for a decade, then fall 10% behind, with front office roles 60% more likely to clear $200K.
Support staff are more likely to work from home (40% vs 29%) and work 5 fewer hours a week, so while front office earns more per year, it earns less per hour.
1 in 3 people receive no bonus at all.
Bonuses come with tenure. 59% of people under one year in get nothing, and this drops to 27% by Years 10 to 15. Consulting firms charge clients a premium for top performers, and 55% of their employees have no bonus scheme at all. At the Big 4, it's 63%. Share with no annual bonus, by industry.
7 in 10 people don't achieve their target bonus.
The typical target bonus is 15% of base pay. Most people only get 79% of that, around $15,000.
Of people with a target bonus, 7% were paid nothing in 2025 / 2026, 21% got under half of target, 41% got half to under target, 6% hit target and 25% went above. In the last year, 1 in 14 people failed to receive anything despite having a target bonus.
If you feel underpaid, you probably are.
Half of the Big 4 employees feel that their pay is unfair. At top-tier Law and Big Tech firms, only 1 in 5 are unsatisfied. Big 4 staff are paid about $25K less than peers early on and overtake after 10 years, so the 51% who feel underpaid are mostly juniors. Share who say their pay is unfair, by employer. The median is 32%.
Source: 2026 Salary Survey, data as at September 2026. Spotted an error? Correct something.
