What Does a New Grad Occupational Therapist Cost a Clinic?

A new graduate occupational therapist costs a clinic at least $76,200 a year in wages and super from February 2027, and about $122,700 by mid-2030 on an assumed 4% annual wage review, with no promotion. By default, the award applies AQF 7 to every new occupational therapist, whether they hold a bachelor, an honours degree or a graduate-entry master's. The occupational therapy question is less the wage than the hour: an NDIS price limit that has sat at $193.99 since 2019, report time that is billable only when it is claimed, and travel paid at half rate.

The short answer

Forecast figures assume a 4% Annual Wage Review each year from 2027, no promotion, and 44 revenue-generating weeks of 25 billable hours. The 40% and 50% ratios, every dated step, the costs that sit on top of wages and the evidence for each figure follow below.

Which rate applies

The Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020 (MA000027) covers employers in the health industry and their employees in its classifications (cl 4.1(a)), and any employer engaging a health professional employee in those classifications (cl 4.1(b)). The second limb is occupational: it can reach a health professional employed outside a clinic, such as by a disability provider or a school, unless another award or agreement applies. The award's terms do not apply where an enterprise agreement applies, and an employee earning above the high income threshold under a guarantee of annual earnings is outside the award's terms. Where an employer is covered by more than one award, the employee falls under the classification most appropriate to their work and where they do it (cl 4.7).

Occupational therapists are often employed outside clinics, by disability providers, schools and community organisations. The award's occupational limb (cl 4.1(b)) is what reaches those employers, provided no enterprise agreement applies.

Schedule B lists occupational therapist at one level, AQF 7. Under cl B.2(a) a new graduate starts at Level 1, AQF 7, 1st year: $1,308.80 a week full-time from 1 October 2026.

The qualification held is often higher than the level applied. The Occupational Therapy Council's accredited programs run at three levels: four-year bachelor degrees (AQF 7), bachelor honours degrees (AQF 8), which most bachelor programs now confer or offer, and two-year graduate-entry master's degrees (AQF 9). All lead to registration. Because the award lists the profession at AQF 7 only, an honours or master's graduate is still classified at AQF 7 unless the employer requires the higher qualification for the role (cl B.2(d)).

Registration. Occupational therapists are registered with the Occupational Therapy Board of Australia through Ahpra, and registration requires professional indemnity insurance. The fee and who pays it are set by the board and your contract, not the award.

One graduate, eight dates

Full-time, 38 ordinary hours a week, rounded to the nearest $100, commencing in the profession in February 2027. On the assumed reviews that is a 61.0% rise in wages plus super with no promotion: the award's staged increases from 30 June, the Annual Wage Review from 1 July, and the experience bands on the anniversary of the employee's experience in the profession.

Determined, published and projected

Three kinds of number sit in every table on this page, and they carry different weight.

• Determined. The 1 October 2026 Level 1 rates are in the award now, set by Fair Work Commission determination PR814029 (made 7 September 2026 with [2026] FWCFB 231) and printed inclusive of the 2026 Annual Wage Review. Only the February 2027 row rests on a determined rate alone; every later row adds an assumed review to a published stage rate, so the tables mark it Projected.
• Published, not yet operative. The Commission decided in [2026] FWCFB 123 that the new rates phase in over five stages, and its appendix at [2026] FWCFB 216 publishes the rate for every stage to 30 June 2030. Each later stage still has to be put into the award by its own determination. The appendix prints those figures before any later Annual Wage Review.
• Projected. The 4% a year for 2027 to 2030 is our assumption, not a determination. Every figure from July 2027 carries it and moves if the actual reviews differ. Read the shape of the curve as the finding and each figure as a planning estimate. Figures are nominal, as payroll will show them.

The award bands Level 1 by years of experience in the profession. The model counts whole years from a February 2027 start with no prior experience, which is why nothing moves at the February 2029 anniversary. How a particular person's experience is counted can move the dates.

Without any future review, the published stage schedule alone takes the same person to about $104,900 a year with super by mid-2030, a 37.6% rise on the starting floor.

The floor, not the payroll. Every figure here is the award minimum for a full-time employee on 38 ordinary hours. A clinic already paying above it starts from its own offer, and the contract sets how that offer moves. The floor still rises by these steps underneath it, and the margin between the offer and the floor narrows at every step unless the offer moves too.

What wages and super leave out

The tables are annualised rates in force at each date, not cash paid across a calendar year, and they cover base wages and super only. The fully loaded cost of employing the same person is higher. Some of the gap is fixed by the award; the rest depends on your state, your insurer and the way you run the role.

Where they apply, these costs sit on top of the table above. A model built on wages and super alone is built short.

Evenings and Saturdays: which span of ordinary hours applies is a question to confirm for your practice and roster. For a day worker, ordinary hours fall between 6.00 am and 6.00 pm, Monday to Friday, "unless otherwise stated" (cl 13.2(a)). In "private medical, dental, pathology, physiotherapy, chiropractic and osteopathic practices" they fall between 7.30 am and 9.00 pm Monday to Friday and 8.00 am and 4.30 pm on Saturday (cl 13.2(b)). The award defines that phrase as "the practice of any practitioner, such as" a list of examples that includes medical centres, general practices and physiotherapy, chiropractic and osteopathic practices, and excludes medical imaging practices, hospitals and hospices (cl 2). Occupational therapy is not among the examples, but the list is illustrative: not being named does not by itself place a occupational therapy practice outside the definition, and nothing in it expressly places one inside. This page does not resolve it either way: confirm how it applies to your practice and roster before you set the after-hours diary.

What turns on the answer is the cost of an evening hour. Inside the extended span, evening hours are ordinary time. Outside it, work after 6.00 pm is overtime at 150% for the first two hours (cl 25.2) or, for an employee regularly rostered to work ordinary hours outside the span, shiftwork at 115% (cl 2 definition of shiftworker, cl 26.3); at the AQF 7 first-year rate a 150% hour costs at least $17.22 more than a weekday ordinary hour. Ordinary hours worked on a Saturday are paid at 150% (cl 26.1). Until it is confirmed, price any after-hours sessions both ways.

The billings the role has to produce

Per billable hour assumes 44 revenue-generating weeks of 25 completed, revenue-producing hours: 1,100 hours a year. 44 weeks is our planning assumption for the weeks a clinician actually produces billings: a 52-week year less four weeks of annual leave, public holidays, sick leave and training. It is not a statutory figure. The wages and super above are still costed the way the award and the National Employment Standards require, on the full 52-week year, because paid leave is still paid; only the billings side is divided by 44. Cancellations and empty slots come out of the 25 hours, not the 44 weeks, so no absence is counted twice. The hourly figure moves the moment either assumption changes.

This page does not convert the hourly figure into a per-appointment figure. Occupational therapy work is a mix of sessions, assessments, reports and travel, billed by time under the NDIS, so the hour is the natural unit.

We treat 50% as the ceiling rather than the target. In our planning, wages plus super should be no more than half of a clinician's billings, so the role bills at least twice its cost; clinics with different overheads or owner pay will set their own line. Clearing it is not profit; the other half still has to carry rent, admin, equipment and the owner's margin. Our approach to timing is that the first year's target should already point at the end state. We don't set goals for year one that will be redundant by year two.

Where occupational therapy's prices are set for you

The billings table is a target per hour. Some payers set or cap the price instead. Where a scheme fixes or caps what an hour or a service pays, the question becomes how many minutes of the graduate's time that price pays for. The figures below are the schemes' published prices set against the hourly billings this role needs; none of them is a fee recommendation, and private health insurance sets no fee at all. NDIS figures are the national price limits; the schedule sets higher limits for remote and very remote areas.

• NDIS. The occupational therapy limit has been $193.99 an hour since 1 July 2019, and became an enforceable maximum on 24 September 2026 for agency-managed and plan-managed participants. Over the same period the award floor under the graduate has moved every year and now moves by stage as well. At the current limit, a role that is all NDIS needs about 31.9 completed billable hours a week by mid-2030 to hold wages+super at 45%, against the 25 the table assumes. The limit is reviewed each year; the arithmetic holds the current figure still.
• What counts as a billable hour. NDIS bills by the minute the support is delivered, and the schedule carries separate non-face-to-face, report and telehealth items at the same hourly limit, and a provider-travel item priced at 50% of the limit. In occupational therapy a large share of the work is assessment and report writing, so the 25 completed hours in the table should count only time that is actually claimable. Unclaimed report time is a cost, not a billable hour.
• Travel. Community and home-visit roles carry two costs the clinic-based professions mostly do not: the award's vehicle allowance of at least $1.01 a km where the employee uses their own car, and travel time that NDIS pays at half the rate.
• DVA prices occupational therapy differently from physiotherapy: $134.30 a consultation from 1 July 2026, against $77.10.

What to look at now

The question is not only whether a clinic can pay the starting wage, but whether the role still works once the bands change and the stages land. Most of these levers are easier to move before the increases arrive than after.

• Fee schedule. A fee rise that only tracks inflation does not close a gap in which the cost of the same person climbs by band as well as by review.
• Payer mix. Where the role's hours are funded at a fixed price, the hourly figure in the billings table has to fit under that price.
• Diary design and ramp plan. When in the first year the role is expected to reach the billings the table implies, and which hours count as billable.
• Service mix. Where growing experience can be matched to work the clinic can charge more for.
• The hiring decision itself. The offer sets one number. Who is hired has a large bearing on whether the role reaches the billings the table implies.

Change the assumptions. The free New Grad Progression Calculator runs the AQF 7 Level 1 path, which this profession shares with physiotherapy, on your own hours and wage review assumption. The free New Graduate Cost Calculator gives first-year cost for seven professions. Neither determines the pay of someone already on your team.

The team you already have

A new graduate is the clean case: one qualification, one clock, no history. For an employee classified under the award on 30 September 2026, clause J.4.3 of PR814029 sets the new award minimum as the higher of two figures: the minimum for their translated classification, and the minimum for their old classification on that day. It compares two award minimums, not what someone is actually paid, and it runs one person at a time. What the October change does to a wage bill is covered in How exposed is your clinic to the 2026 award changes?

Questions owners ask

How much should I pay a new grad OT in 2027?

At least the award minimum. From 1 October 2026 a full-time first-year occupational therapist at Level 1, AQF 7, has a minimum of $1,308.80 a week, about $68,100 a year before super, until the next stage and wage review in mid-2027.

My graduate has a Master of Occupational Therapy. Do they start at AQF 9?

Not by default. The award lists occupational therapist at AQF 7 only, so cl B.2(a) applies AQF 7 whatever qualification is held. AQF 9 applies only if you require the master's qualification for the role (cl B.2(d)).

Does the award cover OTs working for an NDIS provider rather than a clinic?

The award covers any employer engaging a health professional employee in its classifications (cl 4.1(b)), so it can reach a disability provider that employs an occupational therapist, unless an enterprise agreement applies. Which award covers a particular role is a question for your adviser where the employer runs several kinds of service.

What does a new grad OT cost after three years?

On an assumed 4% annual review, an occupational therapist who started in February 2027 enters the 4th–6th year band in February 2030 at about $114,100 with super, against $76,200 at the start.

How many billable hours does a new grad OT need on NDIS work?

On the current $193.99 limit, holding wages and super at 45% of billings by mid-2030 takes about 31.9 completed, claimed hours a week across 44 weeks, against 25 in the table. Report and travel time count only to the extent they are claimed, and travel is claimed at half the rate.

Does report writing count as billable time?

Only the time you claim. The NDIS schedule has non-face-to-face and report items at the same hourly limit, so claimable report time is a billable hour; report time that is not claimed is a cost to the clinic.

Related reading

• The Health Professionals Award hub: the key dates, the rates and every source in one place.
• AQF levels by profession under the Health Professionals Award: which level each profession starts at.
• How exposed is your clinic to the 2026 award changes?: the margin question for the whole team.
• Your second pay rise hits October 1: what to line up before the reclassification.

The same model for each profession in this series: physiotherapist, exercise physiologist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, osteopath, chiropractor.

Sources

• Fair Work Commission, determination PR814029, made 7 September 2026 with [2026] FWCFB 231 ("stage 1 final determination"), operative 1 October 2026: Level 1 rates at cl 17.1, printed inclusive of the 2026 Annual Wage Review; Schedule B (qualification levels by profession); cl J.4.3(b) (existing employees).
• [2026] FWCFB 216 (14 August 2026), Appendix: the staged Level 1 rates for 30 June 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030, printed before any later Annual Wage Review.
• [2026] FWCFB 123 (26 May 2026): the decision to phase the new structure in over five stages. [2026] FWCFB 47 [6]: the staging method.
• Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020, MA000027, consolidated to 1 October 2026: cl 2 (definitions), cl 4 (coverage), cl 13.2 (span of ordinary hours), cl 23.3(h) (vehicle allowance), cl 25.2 (overtime), cl 26 (penalty rates and shiftwork), cl 27.3 (annual leave loading).
• Australian Qualifications Framework, Second Edition (January 2013): qualification types by AQF level.
• NDIA, NDIS Pricing Schedule 2026-27, effective 24 September 2026 (NDIS pricing arrangements), Part 4 definitions and the therapy support tables.
• Medicare Benefits Schedule, item 10958, fees from 1 July 2026 (MBS Online).
• Department of Veterans' Affairs, occupational therapy fee schedule effective 1 July 2026 (from DVA's dental and allied health fee schedules).
• State Insurance Regulatory Authority (NSW), workers compensation fees for health services, Fees Orders for services on or after 1 February 2026, shown as one example of a state scheme.
• Occupational Therapy Council (Australia & New Zealand), accredited programs; Occupational Therapy Board of Australia (Ahpra) (retrieved 4 October 2026).

About this information

Culture of One is a business advisory firm, not a law firm. This is an illustrative planning model for a new hire and general information about the Health Professionals and Support Services Award, not legal or workplace-relations advice. It assumes the award covers the employment and no enterprise agreement applies, and it does not assess any individual employee's classification or pay entitlements. Stage rates after 1 October 2026 take effect only when the Commission determines them. Annual Wage Review percentages from 2027, and every figure derived from them, are projections; check the current determination before relying on any forward rate.

Last updated 5 October 2026.