The reality of IT employment in Australia is that it is ultimately a matter of salary. According to Robert Half, a major headhunter company in Australia, as of 2021, the salary of a developer in Melbourne, Australia, is as follows:
| Job Title | Average Annual Salary (AUD) |
| Junior Developr (Full Stack) | $65,000 |
| Developer (Full Stack) | $95,000 |
| Senior Developr (Full Stack) | $120,000 |
| IT Manager | $135,000 |
| Solution Architect | $155,000 |
| IT Director | $180,000 |
* For your information, the above annual salary excludes the pension (10% of the annual salary) and other bonuses provided by the company.
The table above is based on full-stack developers, but the salaries of front-end developers and back-end developers are not much different.
If you know the average salary in each region of Australia, it is a standard for how much you should pay when negotiating your salary. On the other hand, I think companies start salary negotiations based on this kind of salary data.
The average salary is a good standard, but depending on the company or the individual’s experience or skills, they may be paid more or less. For example, the bottom 25% of senior developers get $105,000, the top 25% get $135,000, and the top 5% get $150,000.
If you have about 10 years of experience in Korea and have the ability to work in English at a foreign company, you may be able to earn the upper salary of a mid-level developer or a starting salary for a senior developer when you come to Australia. Of course, there are many individual differences, so this is just a personal estimate.
Even if you have enough experience in Korea, if you don’t have enough English, it will be difficult for you to build a career in a proper Australian company, so you can start your career in a Korean company in Australia or an Australian company but with a very small company, which puts you at a very disadvantage in terms of career development. Starting your career in a local company of a certain size as soon as possible will help you settle into an Australian company and move up the career ladder in Australian society.
For example, if an Australian university graduate who doesn’t go into the military starts his career at the age of 23, then at 33 he or she will already be a senior with 10 years of experience. For those who immigrated to the country in their mid-30s and started out as developers, it will not be easy to close the gap without extraordinary efforts.
It is said that the most recommended turnover period for Australian workers is three years. That’s because changing jobs is the fastest way to increase your salary. In Australia, where there is no salary system, if you continue to play a given role, you will not be promoted, no matter what your career is.
Even if you think you’ve grown enough and ask for a promotion, it’s rare for you to be promoted from your current position. This is because the budget for each team and the head count for each position are fixed. So, if you feel that you are not being adequately compensated for your skills, the quickest way is to increase your salary and change companies. Of course, there are quite a few people in Australia who have been in the same job for 10 or 20 years, so this is also case by case.
If you’re just starting out in your developer career, how long does it take to become a senior developer? According to comments on Reddit, it’s about 3 to 7 years. Of course, this is the story of people who were born and raised locally. If you are an immigrant with multiple handicaps, the situation can be very different.
In Australia, it can be said that developers also work 9 to 5 and do not work overtime, but in return, they are not promoted well. Among developers, those who are promoted quickly are those who put in extra effort for 2~3 hours after work hours, whether it is company work or self-development. It’s easy to think that Australia is a paradise without overtime, but it’s the same everywhere people live. If you don’t make a different effort, you won’t have a career growth that is different from others. All the managers I’ve experienced used to work after work, regardless of the working hours, because they had meetings and other things. All of my colleagues who were promoted quickly were people who consistently invested in their work or self-development after work.
Nowadays, it is very difficult to find good developers in Korea, and the price of developers has risen significantly, but the average data of Australian developers who do not work overtime, do not have unreasonable schedules, and do not have a senior salary may seem attractive.
There is a pitfall here: the cost of living in Australia is very high, so the real purchasing power of the salary table above is much lower than it appears to be compared to Korea. The Big Mac index is often used to compare prices between countries, and if you look at the Big Mac index in 2021, Australia is 4.8 and South Korea is 4.
It’s a simple comparison, but if we interpret the 4.8-to-4 ratio as it is, Australia is 20% more expensive. Applying this figure to the Australian salary, the annual salary of $120,000 for a senior developer in Australia is equivalent to $100,000 in Korean prices. A hundred thousand dollars may seem like 100 million, but $100,000 is worth 86 million won at today’s exchange rate. Personally, I feel that the cost of living in Australia is more than 20% higher than in Korea.
For example, in Australia, there is no charter system, so if you don’t have your own home, you will have to look for a rent, which can cost about $2,800 a month for a three-bedroom apartment about 40 minutes by train from Sydney’s city center. $36,400 per annum. The average mid-level developer in Sydney earns $90,000 a year, which is roughly $68,000 after taxes. Subtract the rent from this and it’s $31,600. That’s almost half of their annual salary. If we convert this money back to the Korean inflation seen above, it is $25,000. 21,510,000 won in Korean money. If you deduct taxes and rent per month, you will have less than 1.8 million won left in your hands per month.
If you’re buying a home because you have savings, an apartment in the same condition would cost about $900,000 at the current market price. About 770 million Korean money.
If there is a developer who is thinking about escaping from Korea to Australia, I hope that they will do thorough market research before proceeding, instead of just hearing what the average salary is. In particular, if you are already well established in Korea and are not confident in English, but you want to try Australia for some reason, I would like to ask you to think twice.
On the other hand, if you have excellent development skills (Koreans are generally good at developing), if you are confident in your English (GPA of 7 based on IELTS), and if you are under the age of 35, it is recommended that you try developing in Australia.
For more information on salary data by occupation and region in Australia, check out Robert Half’s free Salary Guide 2021. https://www.roberthalf.com.au/research-insights/salary-guide
Update: Australian Net Developer Salary as of 2024
| title | Median annual salary |
| Junior Developer | $77,000 |
| Mid Developer | $99,000 |
| Senior Developer | $146,500 |
| Tech Lead | $157,000 |
| Principal | $170,500 |