The Health Professionals and Support Services Award changes on 1 October 2026. What it means for Allied Health

I’m not an employment lawyer or an HR advisor. This piece explains what the award does and where the money moves. Deciding how a particular person is classified is a question for your employment advisor.

Why this matters now for Allied Health

From my experience in Allied Health, nobody has paid the Health Professionals and Support Services Award much attention. Salaries have traditionally sat so far above the minimum that nobody checked. That margin is closing, and going into 1 October I expect a significant number of practices will end up paying below the award without meaning to.

The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) has measured the margin. Its 2026-27 Annual Pricing Review (APR) records that the award reaches only a minority of the therapy workforce, because most therapists sit on enterprise agreements or individual arrangements with pay running about 36 per cent above the award floor (p.79).

It is closing from both sides. The award moves five times between 2026 and 2030 while charge rates have been broadly flat across the sector. Raising the award floor does not raise what you can charge, and the NDIA says so in the APR.

“NDIS therapy recommended prices are not directly linked to award wage rates through a cost model.”

Annual Pricing Review 2026-27, page 80

The APR goes further. It says the appropriate response would not be to pass HPSS Award outcomes through into the recommended price of NDIS therapy, and that any effect should instead emerge over time through market rates and be picked up in a future pricing review.

Level 2 is where I would expect practices to fall short first.

What changes on 1 October 2026

Level 1 pay points are gone. From the first full pay period starting on or after 1 October 2026, a Level 1 employee’s minimum is set by two things: the qualification level listed for their profession, and their years of experience in that profession. The first of five stages of new rates starts on the same date.

The award previously ran six Level 1 pay points that you moved people through annually. That structure is deleted.

I’ve built an interactive rate finder for the new structure. Choose a profession, a qualification level and years of experience, and it returns that classification’s weekly, hourly and annual minimum, plus every stage through to 2030. Open the rate finder.

The change comes out of the Fair Work Commission’s priority awards review into gender-based undervaluation. The Commission found the classifications and minimum rates for health professionals under this award had been undervalued.

Update, 24 September 2026: The Commission made the final determination, PR814029, on 7 September 2026, and the award has been re-issued with it. Its Stage 1 rates, hourly rates and profession list are identical to the draft determination this piece was written from, so no figure here has changed. It sets the 1 October 2026 rates only. The later stages come from the Commission’s decision and schedule and are not yet in the award. The Fair Work Ombudsman pay guide for MA000027 is the document to pay from.

What decides the rate

The qualification level for the profession

Schedule B of the award lists a qualification level for each common health profession, set against the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF). AQF 7 is a bachelor degree, AQF 8 is a bachelor honours degree or a graduate diploma, and AQF 9 is a masters.

Where Schedule B lists one level, that level applies whatever qualification the individual holds. An occupational therapist with a masters is paid at AQF 7, the same as one with a bachelor.

Where it lists three, the individual’s own qualification decides. That’s speech pathology, dietetics and social work on this list. The Commission listed multiple levels where it couldn’t identify a single standard entry qualification for the profession, and a single level where it could. Speech pathology has substantial numbers of qualifying courses at all three levels, so all three are listed.

Take two new graduate speech pathologists starting with you in February. The one with a bachelor sits at AQF 7, on an award minimum of about $68,300 a year. The one with a masters sits at AQF 9, on about $75,400. Same start date, same caseload. Two new graduate occupational therapists in that position don’t differ at all, because occupational therapy is listed at AQF 7 whatever the individual holds.

Years in the profession

Years of experience are counted in the profession, not in your practice. A clinician arriving with four years elsewhere starts on the fourth to sixth year rate with you. The Commission amended the wording at paragraph 89 of its May 2026 decision to put that beyond doubt.

Part-time staff now accrue experience at the same rate as everyone else. The old rule requiring 1,824 hours before progression is deleted. At paragraph 74 of the same decision the Commission held that the overwhelming majority of health professionals working part-time hours are women, so the rule would disproportionately affect female employees. A clinician working two days a week accrues a year in a year.

A second degree doesn’t move the level. At paragraph 84 of the decision the Commission held that the qualification in Schedule B is a proxy for the profession’s work value rather than something personal to the individual. A Physiotherapist who finishes a masters stays on AQF 7.

The duties performed, above Level 1

Level 2 pays a little over $101,000 a year at the first stage, roughly $13,000 more than an AQF 7 clinician with seven or more years in the profession. It is the largest step in the structure below management.

Clause A.2.2 puts four roles at Level 2, joined by “or”, so any one of them is enough:

• Senior clinician. Works directly with patients in a clinical area needing specialist knowledge or depth of experience, or gives clinical guidance and direction to less experienced employees as needed
• Specialist. Performs duties within or across one or more areas of expertise, which may include research or quality assurance and control
• Supervisor. Required to provide supervision on a day to day basis to other health professionals, to other employees such as Allied Health assistants or to students
• Educator. Accountable for the assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation of education and staff development programs

The supervisor limb names Allied Health assistants and students expressly. A clinician who takes student placements has a Level 2 argument on the face of the award, and so does one who directs the assistant delivering their therapy plan. The award doesn’t define what day to day supervision means.

A second feature is worth reading closely. Clause A.2.2 says a Level 2 employee performs those duties. Clause A.2.3 says a Level 3 has been appointed to perform them, and clause A.2.4 says a Level 4 has been appointed as a manager. Levels 3 and 4 need an act of appointment. Level 2 attaches to what someone is doing, whether or not anyone changed a title, wrote a position description or appointed them to anything.

Once you have the level, the years and the duties, my rate finder gives you the weekly, hourly and annual minimum.

What sits on top of the minimum

The award figure is the floor of the base rate. Employment cost sits above it.

• Superannuation at 12 per cent. Since 1 July 2026, Payday Super requires contributions to reach the fund within seven business days of each pay run rather than quarterly. The base is now qualifying earnings, which brings ordinary time earnings together with other payments
• Annual leave loading at 17.5 per cent under clause 27.3, unless an above-award salary expressly absorbs it
• Casual loading at 25 per cent under clause 11.4(b)
• Penalties and overtime, all calculated on the new minimum hourly rate, so all rise with it
• Vehicle allowance at $1.01 per kilometre under clause 23.3(h)(i) where an employee is required and authorised to use their own car. For a mobile practice this is a significant line
• Wage-related allowances, such as the on-call allowance, which the award sets as a percentage of its standard rate. From 1 October the standard rate becomes the AQF 7 first year rate, so it rises from $1,219.50 to $1,308.80 a week and those allowances rise by the same 7.32 per cent

When the increases land, 2026 to 2030

Stage one is 1 October 2026. Four more follow on 30 June in 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030. Across all five, an AQF 7 clinician in their first year rises about 20 per cent.

Annual wage review increases apply on top of every one of those stages. At paragraph 76 of the decision the Commission rejected any submission that the increases to minimum rates should be absorbed into future annual wage review increases, on the basis that it would substantially undo the correction it set out to make. So the wage line carries two separate movements a year until 2030, and that 20 per cent is understated.

Nobody’s minimum falls in the process. An employee already classified under the award on 30 September 2026 is paid the higher of their new rate and the rate they were already on.

What to do before 1 October

1. Record the qualification, institution, year and AQF level for every therapist you employ, plus their total years in the profession including time with previous employers
2. Work out who’s performing Level 2 duties, starting with anyone supervising students or Allied Health assistants
3. Get advice on anyone the second step flagged, before the first affected pay run

The classification work doesn’t depend on the final figures, so it can start now.

The question worth sitting with is the second one. What are your people doing day to day, and does the award already price it higher than you are?

This lands in the same window as the funding changes in the NDIS Bill, so the wage side is one of two movements to plan for.

Find your numbers

The rate finder covers 13 professions, and where a profession is not on the list it asks for the qualification level instead, which is what Schedule B does. Every figure in it is transcribed from the Commission’s own documents.

Open the Health Professionals and Support Services Award rate finder

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General commentary only. This does not constitute legal, financial, HR or compliance advice. The operative document is the award as varied, and the Fair Work Ombudsman pay guide for MA000027 is the figure to pay from.

Sources: Fair Work Commission, determination PR814029, 7 September 2026. Fair Work Commission, [2026] FWCFB 123, 26 May 2026, with the annexed determination. Fair Work Commission, [2026] FWCFB 216, 14 August 2026, and the staged rates appendix. Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020 (MA000027), incorporating amendments to 1 October 2026. Annual figures are the weekly rate multiplied by 52.1786 weeks, base only, and are my own calculation. They exclude superannuation, leave loading, penalties, overtime and allowances.