How an hourly rate is worked out from an AusTender contract

AusTender publishes a Commonwealth contract's value and its dates. It does not publish an hourly rate, a company's margin, payroll tax or super. ReverseTender takes the published numbers, calculates the hourly rate the contract implies, and estimates how much a company would have to keep to pay the rate someone is actually on.

The result is an implied rate, not the rate anyone was paid. When you look up a contract you can change each assumption below except GST, which is fixed at 10%. Open ReverseTender to try it on a real contract.

The formula

ex GST         = value / 1.10
loaded cost    = ex GST / (1 + margin)
base labour    = loaded cost / ((1 + super) × (1 + payroll tax))
base hourly    = base labour / hours
package hourly = base hourly × (1 + super)

The package hourly rate is the rate to the contractor with super included. The first line applies when the value includes GST, as AusTender's do where GST applies. The second is a markup; with a gross margin, loaded cost is ex GST × (1 − margin).

A worked example

A contract worth $110,000 including GST, over 1,920 hours, at a 5% markup, the ACT's 6.75% payroll tax and 12% super:

The default assumptions

• GST: 10%.
• Margin: a 5% markup. If you type in the rate you are paid, ReverseTender can instead solve for the margin that matches it.
• Super: 12%, the Commonwealth guarantee from 1 July 2025.
• Payroll tax: 6.75%, the ACT's rate from 1 July 2026 for Australia-wide wages over $1.75 million and up to $20 million. It is applied to all of the contract's base labour plus super. That fits an employer already over the threshold: its other wages use the threshold up, so each further dollar is taxed at about the full rate. An employer under the threshold pays none, so pick 0%. In Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia, a further dollar costs more than the published rate over some range of wages, because the threshold shrinks or the rate phases in as wages rise. The band depends on the employer's total wages, not this contract's. You can pick another state and band.
• Hours: taken from the contract's span, as days ÷ 365 × 1,920, counting both the first and the last day.

How a going rate is worked out

A going rate is the spread of implied rates across the published notices that match a search, with the quartiles and a histogram. A notice counts only when its hourly rate per person, excluding GST and before any margin, payroll tax or super comes off, falls between $90 and $300; you can change that band.

A headcount the notice states, such as "4 x labour hire", divides the value first. If it states none and the rate is above the band, the value is divided by the smallest whole number that brings it into the band. That number is an inference, not a fact from the notice.

Spans under 10 days and notices missing their dates or value are left out. So, when you search by position, are notices that say only "Temporary Personnel" or "Labour Hire". Each of these is listed with its reason. Cancelled notices are never counted, and are not listed.

What the figures cannot tell you

• An AusTender value is the contract's total value, including GST where it applies: the initial term, plus any options, extensions and other amendments once they are reported. Options not yet taken up are left out. It is not annual spend, and not what was spent: a contract that finishes under budget keeps its value. Supplier and department totals add up these values, not payments.
• The end date is when the contract is expected to finish, and is sometimes an estimate. An agency need not report a change of term that leaves the value alone, so a contract that ran longer than its notice says shows too high a rate.
• The value can include costs that are not labour. The calculation treats all of it as labour.
• The value can cover more than one person. A single contract's figures treat it as one person's hours, and warn when it does not look like one person's contract.
• Hours, margin, payroll tax and super are assumptions, not facts from the notice.
• A part-time contract reads low, because hours are worked out as if it were full-time.
• "One person's contract" is a judgement from the notice, right about 93–96% of the time on blind samples labelled in October 2026.
• The local copy of the notices is refreshed weekly, and AusTender keeps adding notices to a week after it ends, so some from the last few weeks can be missing. AusTender's own search has them.

Where the data comes from

The contract notices are the ones the Australian Government publishes on AusTender, from December 2012 on. Contracts under the reporting threshold are not there: generally $10,000 including GST for non-corporate Commonwealth entities and $400,000 for corporate ones ($7.5 million for construction). Agencies have 42 days to report a contract or an amendment, so a recent one may not be published yet. Amendments published to a notice are folded into its value and dates. Suppliers' entity types and GST registration come from the Australian Business Register. The sources and licences are credited below.