How do I know if I am paid enough for my age in NZ?

Compare your annual pay against the published median for your age band in your region, from Stats NZ tax records. The median 30 to 34 year old in Waikato earned $62,110 in the 2024 tax year, so someone there on $70,000 is about $7,890 (13 per cent) above it. Remember the median includes part-time and part-year earners, so a full-timer should expect to sit above it.

Can this tell me what percentile my salary is in?

No, and any page that does is inventing it from an assumed distribution. Stats NZ publishes the median for each band and region, not the spread around it, so the honest statement is how far above or below the median you sit. That is also the number that matters in a pay conversation.

Why does the median include part-time workers?

The data is built from tax records of everyone with any wage income in the year, counted at what they actually received. That makes it the truest picture of what people are paid, and it means full-time workers generally sit above their band's median. Beating the median on full-time hours mostly confirms you work full-time; the size of the margin is the informative part.

Is a comparison against my age band better than against my job title?

They answer different questions. The age-and-region median says what people like you actually receive, from complete data a year in arrears. A job-title figure says what a role advertises, from whatever sample the source had. Use the tax median as the floor of the conversation and an industry figure, where a good one exists, for the role itself.

Am I Paid Enough? Calculator NZ

This compares your pay against the one benchmark that is measured rather than advertised: the median annual earnings for your age band in your region, from Stats NZ tax records covering essentially everyone who earned. Pick your band and region, enter your pay, and it reports the published median, how far above or below it you sit, and how your band's median has moved. Two honesty rules are built in, because this is a page people will bring feelings to. It will not tell you a percentile, because only the median is published and a percentile would be invented. And it reminds you what the median contains: everyone with any wage income, part-timers included, which is why a full-timer should expect to sit above it and why the size of the margin, not the fact of it, is the information.

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How it works

The data is Stats NZ's Linked Employer-Employee Data: tax records for every tax year since 2000, published as medians by age band, region, sex and income source. Because it comes from tax data it covers essentially everyone with wage income, not a survey sample. This page fetches the same data file the salary section is rendered from and does the comparison in your browser, so your pay never leaves your machine. Figures are for the 2024 tax year, the most recent published, and are wage and salary earnings: self-employment is measured separately and sits far lower.

Worked example

A 32 year old in Waikato on $70,000. The published median for 30 to 34 year olds in Waikato was $62,110 in the 2024 tax year, so they sit about $7,890 (13 per cent) above the median. Because the median counts part-time and part-year earners at what they received, a full-timer should expect to be above it, and the informative part is the margin: 13 per cent clear of the median is a different conversation from two per cent clear of it.

What this comparison can and cannot claim

It can claim exactly one thing: where your pay sits against the measured middle of your band in your region. It cannot claim a percentile, because the distribution is not published. It cannot separate your hours from your rate, because tax data records totals. And it cannot see your industry, which for some trades matters more than age or region. Used within those limits it is the strongest single number to carry into a pay conversation, because unlike an advertised salary nobody can argue with where it came from. The reading guide covers the traps, and the negotiation guide covers the conversation itself.

Related calculators

Average salary in New Zealand: every band, every region, 25 years of history.
Pay Rise Calculator: what any offer is worth after tax.
PAYE Calculator: what your pay actually banks each fortnight.
The gender pay gap by region: the same data split by sex, over 25 years.
What earnings look like across a career: the whole curve this page places you on.
Clock Duration Calculator: Time Between Two Times.
Cron Expression Builder NZ: build a Cron Schedule from Plain Choices.
NZ average salary: the national figures behind the comparison.

Data sources: median annual earnings from Stats NZ Linked Employer-Employee Data, 2024 tax year, retrieved through the Aotearoa Data Explorer. Medians of everyone with wage income, not full-time equivalents. Stats NZ data is used with attribution.