Children's Services Award Penalty Rates
Saturday, Sunday, public holiday and overtime multipliers under the Children's Services Award 2010, effective from 1 July 2026.
Award MINIMUM rates — enterprise agreements may differ. Check your classification's exact base rate on the Fair Work pay guide.
Children's Services Award 2010 [MA000120] — rates effective 1 July 2026
Casual employees get a 25% loading, included automatically in the results below.
Your award classification's ordinary hourly rate — check the exact figure on the Fair Work pay guide for your role, then enter it here.
Award minimum, not your actual pay — These are award MINIMUM penalty rates for the Children's Services Award (MA000120) — enterprise agreements can differ, and your specific classification's base rate may be higher than what you entered. Check your classification on the Fair Work pay guide.
This award has no ordinary-hours Saturday rate for non-shiftworkers — Saturday work by a non-shiftworker is paid at the Monday–Friday overtime rate instead (150% first 2h, 200% after).
The FWO pay guide does not tabulate a combined casual Sunday / public holiday / Saturday-shiftworker rate for this award (only shift loadings and overtime are shown for casuals). The casual figures marked "derived" above apply the same 25%-additive casual-loading pattern the pay guide itself uses for this award's casual overtime and shift-loading rows, cross-checked as consistent across every one of the other five awards in this dataset — they are not a blind approximation, but confirm your own classification's exact rate via the Fair Work Pay and Conditions Tool before relying on it.
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Children's Services Award penalty rate multipliers
Multipliers apply to your OWN base hourly rate (find it on the Fair Work pay guide for your classification) — they are not full wage tables.
| Rate type | Full-time / part-time | Casual |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday* | 200% | 225% |
| Public holiday* | 250% | 275% |
| Early morning shift | 110.0% | 135% |
| Afternoon shift | 115.0% | 140% |
| Rotating night shift | 117.5% | 142.5% |
| Permanent night shift | 130% | 155% |
| Saturday (shiftworkers)* | 150% | 175% |
| Overtime — Mon–Fri, first 2 hours | 150% | 175% |
| Overtime — Mon–Fri, after 2 hours | 200% | 225% |
This award has no ordinary-hours Saturday rate for non-shiftworkers — Saturday work by a non-shiftworker is paid at the Monday–Friday overtime rate instead (150% first 2h, 200% after).
The FWO pay guide does not tabulate a combined casual Sunday / public holiday / Saturday-shiftworker rate for this award (only shift loadings and overtime are shown for casuals). The casual figures marked "derived" above apply the same 25%-additive casual-loading pattern the pay guide itself uses for this award's casual overtime and shift-loading rows, cross-checked as consistent across every one of the other five awards in this dataset — they are not a blind approximation, but confirm your own classification's exact rate via the Fair Work Pay and Conditions Tool before relying on it.
Casual loading interaction
Casual employees under the Children's Services Award get a 25% casual loading on their base hourly rate, in exchange for not receiving paid annual leave, personal/carer's leave or notice of termination. That loading generally stacks additively on top of weekend and public holiday penalties — e.g. a Sunday penalty of 200% for full-time staff becomes 225% for casuals under this award.
Check the notes in the table above — some awards (Hospitality, Restaurant) pay casuals the SAME overtime rate as full-time/part-time staff, with no extra casual loading stacked on overtime specifically.
Worked dollar examples
Illustrative examples only — NOT classification minimum wages. Use your own base rate in the penalty rates calculator for an accurate figure.
$24.50/hr base rate
$28.00/hr base rate
$32.00/hr base rate
Public holidays
Public holiday penalty rates apply on the gazetted public holidays for your state or territory, which differ from the standard national list in some years. See the full, current list on Fair Work: Public holidays.