What is the average salary for my age in New Zealand?

In the 2024 tax year the median annual earnings from wages and salaries were $54,780 for 25 to 29 year olds, $62,480 for 30 to 34 year olds, and $74,520 for 45 to 49 year olds, the peak band. Every band and every region has its own published figure, from tax records rather than surveys. They are medians of everyone with any wage income in the year, which is why they sit below advertised full-time salaries.

Why is the figure for my age lower than salaries I see advertised?

Three reasons stack. The figure is a median, not a mean, so it is not pulled up by high earners the way survey averages are. It counts everyone with any wage income, including part-time and part-year workers, at what they actually received. And it is total annual earnings from tax records, not a full-time equivalent rate. An advertised salary describes one full-time job; this figure describes what people your age were actually paid across the year.

I earn more than my age band's median. Am I doing well?

You are doing better than the figure can confirm, but less than it seems to say. Full-time workers are generally above their band's median because part-time and part-year earners pull it down, so beating the median mostly confirms you work full-time. The more useful comparisons are your own band in your own region, and your trajectory against the band above yours.

Where does this data come from?

Stats NZ's Linked Employer-Employee Data, built from tax records for every tax year since 2000, split by age band, sex, region and income source. Tax data covers essentially everyone who earned, which no survey does, and it is the same source behind every figure in this site's salary section.

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Average Salary for Your Age in NZ: How to Read the Figure

Search for the average salary for your age and you will find numbers that disagree with each other by tens of thousands of dollars. They are not all wrong; they are measuring different things. This guide is about the one published from tax records, what it actually measures, and how to compare your own pay against it without drawing the wrong conclusion in either direction.

The figures themselves, from the 2024 tax year: median annual earnings from wages and salaries were $54,780 for 25 to 29 year olds, $62,480 for 30 to 34 year olds, and $74,520 in the peak band, 45 to 49. Across all ages together the median is $57,260. Every band has its own page with its own regional split and 25 years of history.

Before comparing anything against them, three words in the definition each carry a rule: median, annual, and everyone. The next section takes them in turn, because each one is a way to misread the figure.

Median, annual, everyone: the three rules

Median: the middle person, not the average dollar

Half of your band earned more than the figure, half less. A mean would sit noticeably higher, dragged up by a small number of very large incomes. This is why tax-record medians always undercut the "average salary" figures quoted from mean-based surveys, and why the median is the better yardstick for the question you are actually asking, which is whether your pay is typical, not whether it matches an arithmetic artefact.

Annual: what was received, not what was offered

The figure is the total wage income the middle person actually received in the tax year. Someone who changed jobs with a month off, took unpaid leave, or started in November is counted at what hit their bank account. An advertised salary is a rate; this is an outcome. Outcomes are always messier and lower.

Everyone: including the part-time and the part-year

Every person with any wage income at all is in the band. In the younger bands that includes students working Saturdays; in the older bands, people winding down to three days. They are counted at what they earned, which pulls every band's median below what a typical full-timer in that band is paid. The practical rule: if you work full-time, expect to be above your band's median, and read "at the median" as slightly behind rather than exactly typical.

The comparison worth making

The raw question, "am I paid enough?", needs two corrections before the data can answer it, and both are on this site. First, region: the same age band's median differs meaningfully between regions, and comparing your Southland pay against a national figure smuggles Auckland into your benchmark. Every band's page splits by region, and the am I paid enough calculator does the lookup in one step: your age, your region, your pay, and where that sits against the published median.

Second, direction beats level. A single comparison against your band tells you less than your movement between bands. The gap between your band and the next one up is the rise the market expects you to find over roughly five years; if your last five years have not covered it, that is the number to take into a pay conversation, and the career guide shows where in the curve those gaps are large.

And one comparison to refuse: your pay against a figure someone quotes without naming its source, its year and whether it is a median. Most salary arguments are two people comparing different definitions.

Why the different published figures disagree

Advertised-salary indexes measure the asking rates of jobs currently vacant, which skews toward roles that churn and toward the future. Survey averages measure means, self-reported, from samples. Tax-record medians measure what everyone was actually paid, a year in arrears. Line them up for the same age group and the advertised index reads highest, the survey mean next, and the tax median lowest, with tens of thousands of dollars between the ends. None of them is lying; they answer different questions.

The tax median answers the one this guide is for: what do people like me actually receive? Its weaknesses are the flip side of its strengths: it is a year behind, it cannot separate hours from rates, and it says nothing about your industry. Where an industry figure matters more than an age one, the median is the wrong tool and a collective agreement or industry survey is the right one.

The honest workflow, in one line: start from your band and region on this site's tax-record medians, adjust for knowing whether you are full-time, and treat any advertised figure as the price of changing jobs rather than the value of your current one.

Test Your Knowledge

Quiz on reading the age figures

1. Why do tax-record medians sit below advertised salaries?

They are medians of what everyone with any wage income actually received, including part-time and part-year workers, while an advertised salary is a full-time asking rate

Because tax records exclude bonuses

Because employers under-report to Inland Revenue

They do not; the figures match

2. You work full-time and earn exactly your band's median. The honest reading is?

You are precisely typical for a full-time worker your age

You are probably slightly behind the typical full-timer, because part-time earners pull the median down

You are in the top quarter of your band

The comparison is meaningless

3. What does the gap between your age band and the next one up represent?

Random noise between cohorts

Roughly the rise the market expects you to find over the next five years, which makes it a useful pay-conversation number

A legal entitlement to a rise

The effect of inflation only

4. Why should your comparison use your own region's figure?

The same band's median differs meaningfully by region, and a national figure smuggles the largest centres into your benchmark

Regional figures include a cost-of-living adjustment

National figures are less accurate

Employers only see regional data

5. When is the age-band median the wrong tool?

When comparing against your own past pay

When your industry matters more than your age, where a collective agreement or industry survey answers the actual question

It is never the wrong tool

When you are under 30

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average salary for my age?

In the 2024 tax year: $54,780 at 25 to 29, $62,480 at 30 to 34, $74,520 at the 45 to 49 peak. Medians from tax records, every band and region published on the salary pages.

Why is it below salaries I see advertised?

Median not mean, actual annual earnings not asking rates, and everyone counted including part-timers. Three definitions, all pushing the same way.

How do I check my own pay properly?

Your band, your region, your pay: the am I paid enough calculator does the lookup and states what the comparison can and cannot claim.

Related calculators and guides

Am I Paid Enough Calculator, the lookup this guide teaches you to read.
Average salary in New Zealand, every band, every region, 25 years.
What earnings look like across a career, the shape of the whole curve.
Negotiating your salary, where the band-gap number gets used.
Pay Rise Calculator, what any offer is worth after tax.