Every year the Workplace Gender Equality Agency reports on 6 Gender Equality Indicators for private sector employers with 100 or more employees across 19 industries.
This includes STEM‑qualified industries.
Gender pay gaps by industry
Compare the gender pay gap in STEM industries, health industries and all industries.
Data insights
In 2023, the pay gap between women’s and men’s full-time total remuneration (which includes discretionary pay) in STEM industries was $26,420, or 16%. This pay gap is slightly lower than it was in 2022, when it was $27,012 (17%). In 2016, the gender pay gap was 22%, 6 percentage points higher than the 2023 result.
The gender pay gap for all industries (which includes STEM, health, and non-STEM industries) also decreased from 20% in 2022 to 19% in 2023. For health industries, the pay gap decreased from 17% in 2022 to 16% in 2023.
In 2023, the STEM industries with the largest percentage gender pay gaps were:
- machinery and equipment repair and maintenance (24%)
- oil and gas extraction (23%)
- architectural, engineering and technical services (22%)
- electricity generation (22%).
Oil and gas extraction had the largest gender pay gap in dollar terms: $67,163, up from $63,275 in 2022.
Automotive repair and maintenance was the only STEM industry to have a negative gender pay gap. Meaning, on average across the industry, women’s full-time total remuneration was higher than men’s in 2023. This also occurred for the automotive repair and maintenance industry in 2017.
About the data
The industries mentioned on this page align with Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) codes. In the STEM Equity Monitor, industries are defined as STEM industries when more than 50% of people in the industry reported a STEM qualification in the 2021 Census of Population and Housing.
This data is from private sector employers with 100 or more employees that reported to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).
The 2020–21 WGEA dataset was smaller because of the impacts of COVID-19, changes to the WGEA reporting platform that year, and changes to the way corporate groups reported using the new platform. Data is not available for some industries because of insufficient sample sizes.
Large changes in gender pay gap data between 2020–21 and 2021–22 could be caused by employers self-reporting their ANZSIC industry to WGEA.
See WGEA’s dataset.
Read more about our methodology and this data.