Career changers: will your industry experience lift your teacher salary step?

The short answer by state

Queensland: the 33% category

Queensland's recognition of prior service procedure has three categories. Category 1 (100%) is qualified teaching in approved schools. Category 2 (50%) covers teaching in unaffiliated schools, unqualified teaching, and some department administrative roles, such as a qualified librarian becoming a teacher-librarian. Category 3 (33%) is industry service "directly relevant" to your first appointment as a teacher in your specialised field.

• Examples the department gives: an accountant employed as an accounting teacher, a laboratory scientist as a science teacher, a construction worker as a manual arts teacher, and a librarian as a teacher-librarian.
• The five-year rule: the industry employment must have ceased within the five years before your first appointment as a teacher. Work that ended earlier isn't recognised.
• Relevance is checked: the teacher classifications team can ask your principal or head of department whether the experience is relevant to your teaching role.
• Self-employment counts if a statement from the business's accountant shows the nature of the work and the total time in years, months and days.
• Excluded: private tutoring and life education programs.

NSW: one year for every two

NSW's salary determination policy has a specific career-changer rule. It applies to recently qualified teachers (qualified since 2024) who are changing careers and joining NSW public schools for the first time, once accredited by NESA and approved to teach. You get 203 days (one year) of teaching service for each two-year full-time-equivalent period of prior employment, up to 1,218 days (six years). The department considers the role you held, and the credit can place you above Step 1.

There's a catch, because NSW accreditation also sets a floor. New graduates have Conditional or Provisional accreditation, which maps to Step 1, and Step 3 needs Proficient. For recognised career changers, the policy allows Proficient (Pending) status for up to two years, giving access to salary levels beyond Step 2. If you don't gain Proficient in that time, your salary reverts to Step 2.

ACT: other work experience in full years

The ACT is the broadest. Clause Q1.8 of the ACT public schools teaching staff agreement places teachers on the Teacher Level structure "based on recognition of qualifications and prior experience, including both teaching and other work experience", and all prior experience is recognised in full years only. The detail, including how much non-teaching work equals a year, sits in the Directorate's Guidelines for Incremental Salary Advancement, which we couldn't read. Ask for the assessment in writing when you get an offer.

ACT levels are far apart at the bottom: TL1 is $91,396 and TL2 is $100,006, so a single recognised year is worth $8,610 a year before tax.

Victoria, WA and the rest

Victoria is clear: experience gained before completing an approved teacher training course isn't counted for commencing salary, and neither is early childhood (other than kindergarten), TAFE or higher education experience. WA may recognise some education roles outside school teaching (it names TAFE and university lecturers, teachers in alternative schools and childcare workers), but only in full years of continuous service and on a case-by-case basis. SA, Tasmania and the NT don't publish an industry rule that we could find.

Catholic and independent schools mostly count teaching service only. The NSW and ACT Catholic systemic agreement and Victoria's CEMEA 2022 both define service as teaching in registered schools, and the national teachers award defines teaching service as time employed as a teacher. Individual employers can offer more, so ask.

Evidence for an industry claim

Still deciding whether to switch? Our career change to teaching guide covers courses and costs, and employment-based teaching pathways explains the paid routes. Vocational teaching is on separate scales: see TAFE teacher salary in Australia.