Unless stated otherwise, this workforce data shows you numbers as at June 2021.
For some visuals, we give you a breakdown of the data by:
The industry groups are:
At the end of this page, find Excel datasets for June 2015 to June 2021.
Read more about how we define the public sector or see the full list of public sector agencies.
At June 2021, there were:
Executives make up:
Women make up:
Executive gender pay gap, at June 2021:
Executive median pay at June 2021:
Executives are the senior leaders of the public sector workforce. They work in a complex and changing environment to deliver on the Government’s priorities.
Collectively, executives manage billions of dollars of assets, huge budgets and large workforces. They oversee the delivery of critical policies and services and manage considerable risk.
A Victorian Public Service executive is employed under Part 3 of the Public Administration Act 2004.
A public entity executive is either a:
From 2020 to 2021, the number of Victorian Public Service executives rose to meet demands for leadership in social policy areas and to help manage the impacts of COVID-19.
Victorian Public Service:
Public entities:
Machinery of Government impacts, July 2019 to June 2020
Executive growth in 2018 to 2019 includes the transfer of 90 executives:
From July 2020 to June 2021, 56% of appointees to Victorian Public Service executive roles were women.
In 2016, the government set a target to have 50% women appointed as Victorian Public Service executives.
“Appointed” means:
Read more about these targets in Safe and Strong – A Victorian Gender Equality Strategy.
The Victorian Independent Remuneration Tribunal set the remuneration bands for all public sector executives.
In May 2020 they set the Victorian Public Service executive remuneration bands.
In December 2020 they set the public entity executive remuneration bands.
For Chief Executive Officers employed by a public entity, the minimum remuneration package is classified under as Senior Executive Service (SES) 1 but starts at $135,000 per annum.
| Classification | Minimum total remuneration package ($) per annum | Maximum total remuneration package ($) per annum |
|---|---|---|
| SES 1 | 192,800 | 249,700 |
| SES 2 | 249,701 | 360,000 |
| SES 3 | 360,001 | 479,900 |
Victorian Public Service median executive pay at June 2021 was:
Public entity median executive pay at June 2021 was:
The gender pay gaps continue to favour men, changing from:
From 2020 to 2021, the pay gap for Victorian Public Service executives widened primarily due to:
The Major Transport Infrastructure Authority (MTIA) sits within the Transport portfolio.
It's responsible for infrastructure projects including:
Due to the nature of these projects, MTIA employs a large number of high-paid executives. Most of them are men.
This has a large impact on the overall executive remuneration pay gap.
If MTIA executives were excluded, the pay gap would:
This table shows how including and excluding the Major Transport Infrastructure Authority (MTIA) impacts the gender pay gap in the public sector.
| Responses for | Average remuneration of women | Average remuneration of men | Pay gap as an amount | Pay gap as a percentage |
| Victorian Public Service (including MTIA) | $230,039 | 249,701 | $19,662 | 7.9% |
| Victorian Public Service (excluding MTIA) | $230,000 | $239,700 | $9,700 | 4% |
| Overall public sector (including MTIA) | $235,399 | $249,700 | $14,301 | 5.7% |
| Overall public sector (excluding MTIA) | $234,473 | $240,789 | $6,336 | 2.6% |
Using the overall public sector workforce as an example, this is how we measure the pay gap:
So the pay gap for the overall public sector workforce is 5.7%.
This data set covers June 2016 to June 2021.
We source this data from our annual workforce and executive data collections that cover over 1,800 Victorian public sector employers.
This file has the following executive profile measures for the Victorian public sector:
It also has: