AI Salary Guide Australia
An AI engineer in Australia earns a median base salary of $140,000 at mid level, $170,000 at senior and $190,000 at lead, excluding super, at a large Sydney employer (Galileo P1 salary dataset, July 2026). Graduates start near $85,000 and principals reach $210,000. Contract day rates run from $923 at mid level to $1,252 at lead.
Galileo P1 salary dataset, Sydney, large company, base salary excluding super, July 2026. Day rates are contract medians at the same tier.
By level
Base salary excluding super, with the typical range, the median package including super, a derived monthly figure and the contract day-rate median at the same tier. Galileo P1 salary dataset, July 2026.
| Level | Base, low | Base, median | Base, high | Package incl. super | Per month (derived) | Day rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Graduate | $72,250 | $85,000 | $97,750 | $95,200 | $7,083 | $560 |
| Mid-level | $119,000 | $140,000 | $161,000 | $156,800 | $11,667 | $923 |
| Senior | $144,500 | $170,000 | $195,500 | $190,400 | $14,167 | $1,120 |
| Lead | $161,500 | $190,000 | $218,500 | $212,800 | $15,833 | $1,252 |
| Principal | $178,500 | $210,000 | $241,500 | $235,200 | $17,500 | $1,384 |
The monthly column is the annual base median divided by twelve, before tax and excluding super; it is arithmetic, not a separately measured figure. Package medians apply the dataset's 12% superannuation convention.
By city
Two of the engineering seats we track, at senior level, large company: median total package including super and the contract day-rate median. Galileo P1 salary dataset, July 2026.
| City | Package incl. super | Day rate |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | $207k | $1,388 |
| Melbourne | $201k | $1,346 |
| Brisbane | $191k | $1,277 |
| Perth | $197k | $1,318 |
| Adelaide | $176k | $1,179 |
| Canberra | $218k | $1,457 |
| City | Package incl. super | Day rate |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | $202k | $1,064 |
| Melbourne | $196k | $1,032 |
| Brisbane | $185k | $979 |
| Perth | $192k | $1,010 |
| Adelaide | $171k | $904 |
| Canberra | $212k | $1,117 |
Canberra benchmarks highest of the six, driven by government and defence programs; Adelaide lowest. The gap between Sydney and Melbourne is small at senior level and widens at lead and principal.
Advertised versus benchmarked
Only 15.5% of Australian AI engineering ads disclose pay (Galileo Search analysis of advertised Australian AI roles, July 2026). The bands below come from the ads that do; the medians above come from the dataset.
| Level | Advertised base band | P1 median base |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-level AI engineer | $130k to $160k | $140k |
| Senior AI / GenAI engineer | $150k to $200k | $170k |
| Lead / staff engineer | $200k to $270k | see lead row above |
Advertised bands: live AU postings, July 2026. The full pay-transparency analysis, by role family, is on the AI salary transparency page.
What moves the number
Australian GenAI engineering is two markets. AWS and Bedrock engineers serve product companies and consultancies; Azure and Copilot engineers serve corporates rolling AI into the enterprise. The pools price differently and rarely cross.
How we search both poolsThe premium sits with engineers who have shipped LLM systems to production: evaluation, guardrails, observability and cost control. Retrieval and agent frameworks are now table stakes; running them under governance is what pays.
The governance seats that followThe dataset carries company-size and city multipliers. A large Sydney or Canberra employer sits at the top of the range; a mid-market Adelaide employer at the bottom. Benchmark on your own parameters in the live tool rather than the headline figure.
Open the benchmarking toolContract medians run at roughly 1.3 times the daily equivalent of the permanent base at the same tier. A senior engineer on a twelve-week build is a different buy from a permanent hire; both are on the live roles page.
Live AI rolesQuestions we get asked
All fifteen AI seats, leadership to governance, are in the AI Salary Guide Australia.
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