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ANZSCO 4231Skill level 4Health and care

Aged-care worker

Provide personal care, social support and basic clinical assistance to older Australians in home, community and residential settings.

Registration: NDIS Worker Screening (community settings) and aged-care worker screening

Salary

Cited figures from Job Outlook and QILT. ExamExplained does not publish predictive earnings or projections.

FigureAUDSource
Full-time weekly earnings$1200Job Outlook (2025-06-01)

How far does this stretch in each city?

What a aged-care worker actually does

Aged-care workers split between residential aged-care facilities and in-home Home Care Package work. A residential shift opens with handover from the off-going team, then a flat-out morning of personal care: showers, dressing, continence support, breakfast assistance and medication prompts. Mid-morning is recreation activities, family visits and document updates in the care system. Lunch service, then afternoon care rounds, then evening showers and settle. Most facility shifts are 8 or 10 hours and rotate across day, evening and night, with night shifts focused on continence checks and answering call bells. Community workers drive a route of 6 to 10 short visits, often 20 to 45 minutes each, supporting people to keep living at home. The work is physically and emotionally heavy: clients you build relationships with will die, and casualisation of the workforce means shift patterns can be unpredictable.

Typical tasks

  • Support clients with personal hygiene and mobility.
  • Assist with meals, medication prompts and household tasks.
  • Document changes in condition and report to clinicians.

Skills you'll use

  • Personal care including showering, dressing and toileting
  • Manual handling and safe transfers (Sara Stedy, slings, hoists)
  • Medication prompts and recording
  • Dementia-aware communication and behaviour support
  • Wound observation and skin-integrity checks
  • Documentation in aged-care management software
  • Spotting early signs of deterioration to escalate to RNs
  • Cultural respect for clients from diverse backgrounds

How to become one

  1. 1Finish Year 10 (minimum) or Year 12 with general literacy
  2. 2Complete a Certificate III in Individual Support (Ageing) (CHC33021) at TAFE or a private RTO
  3. 3Pass the required 120 hours of supervised work placement
  4. 4Obtain a National Police Check and the NDIS Worker Screening Check (for community work)
  5. 5Complete the mandatory aged-care worker screening required by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission
  6. 6Apply for entry-level roles in residential aged care or home care
  7. 7Consider stepping up to Certificate IV in Ageing Support or Diploma of Nursing for more clinical scope

Where you can work

  • Residential aged-care facilities (for-profit and not-for-profit)
  • Home Care Package providers
  • Commonwealth Home Support Programme services
  • Hospitals as assistants in nursing
  • Multicultural and Aboriginal-specific aged-care services
  • Dementia-specific units and memory-support facilities
  • Retirement villages and independent-living complexes

Career progression

Typical stages and salary bands. Salary figures are sourced from Job Outlook, QILT or industry bodies; brackets are 25th-75th percentile not absolute floors or ceilings.

  1. Entry-level carer
    0-1 years
    Typical roles: Personal-care worker, Home-care worker, Assistant in nursing (AIN)
    Salary band: $55,000 - $65,000 per year (source, sourced 2026-05-21)
  2. Experienced carer
    2-5 years
    Typical roles: Senior personal-care worker, Lifestyle assistant, Lead carer
    Salary band: $60,000 - $72,000 per year (source, sourced 2026-05-21)
  3. Team leader or coordinator
    5+ years
    Typical roles: Team leader, Care coordinator, Trainer assessor
    Salary band: $70,000 - $88,000 per year (source, sourced 2026-05-21)

Is this for you?

You might love this if

  • You like spending time with older people and hearing their stories
  • You're physically fit enough to lift and assist for an 8 to 10-hour shift
  • You're comfortable with bodily fluids and end-of-life care
  • You can take a person-first approach with dementia behaviours
  • You're reliable - rosters depend on people turning up

This might not suit you if

  • You can't handle bodily fluids, wounds or smells
  • You want a desk-based or screen-based job
  • You can't cope with grief when long-term residents die
  • You want a job with guaranteed weekday daytime shifts

Three ways in

Uni, TAFE and trade routes for aged-care worker. Not every career has all three; we only list pathways that actually lead to this occupation.

University

Bachelor degrees that lead to this career.

No direct undergraduate pathway. Consider postgraduate study after a related bachelor degree.

TAFE / VET

Nationally accredited Certificate and Diploma qualifications.

Apprenticeship trade

Earn while you learn through an Australian Apprenticeship.

Not an apprenticeship trade.

Sources

ExamExplained does not publish predictive salary figures. For current Australian earnings data check Job Outlook directly. Career classifications follow the ABS ANZSCO 2022 release.