Optus Pay Rates 2026: Retail, Call Centre & Technical Pay

Optus employs around 6,000 people in Australia. The award floor is the Telecommunications Services Award 2020 (MA000041) — it covers customer contact (call centre) staff, clerical and administrative roles, and telecommunications technicians across the industry.

Direct Optus employees are covered by the Optus Employment Partnership Agreement (2025), approved by the Fair Work Commission in April 2025 with a nominal expiry of 15 April 2028. It sets pay and conditions above the award floor, and many Optus roles are paid by individual contract above the agreement again — but neither can price below the award for the hours actually worked.

One caveat that matters in telco: many "Optus" stores are run by licensees and franchise partners, and outsourced contact-centre work sits with the outsourcing provider. Check the employing entity on your payslip — if it isn't an Optus (Singtel Optus) entity, the partnership agreement doesn't apply to you, and the MA000041 rates below are your floor. The same structure exists at the other big telco — see our Telstra pay rates 2026 page.

Adult minimum hourly rates under MA000041 from 1 July 2026, verified against the Fair Work Commission pay database:

If you handle escalations, complex faults or coach other agents, you may belong at Level 2 or above — call-centre classification creep almost always runs in the employer's favour.

The other two streams under the same award:

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, rates operative from 1 July 2026. Qualified technicians doing installation and fault work belong at the Technician rate or above, not the "technical employee" entry rate.

Under MA000041 for permanent staff (using Customer Contact Officer Level 1 at $27.97/hr as the example):

• Saturday before 7am / after 1pm, and all day Sunday: 150% — $41.96/hr
• Public holiday: 250% — $69.93/hr
• Afternoon or night shift (shiftworkers): 115% — $32.17/hr
• Permanent night shift: 130% — $36.36/hr

Casuals: 175% for the Saturday/Sunday window and 275% on public holidays, on top of the loading already in their ordinary rate. Contact centres and stores rostering evenings and weekends should show these loadings as separate payslip lines — check yours with our penalty rates calculator.

The patterns we see in telco pay questions:

• Wrong-employer confusion — licensee store and outsourced contact-centre staff assuming Optus agreement rates apply when their actual employer pays award minimums.
• Trainee rates that never end — the trainee classification is for structured training periods, not a permanent discount.
• Unpaid pre-shift work — logging into systems and queues before the paid shift starts is work, and it's compensable.
• Weekend loadings missed — Sunday retail and contact-centre shifts paid at flat rates.
• Commission offsetting base pay — store sales incentives sit on top of your award or agreement minimum for hours worked, never in place of it.

Start with the employing entity on your payslip. If it's an Optus entity, read the partnership agreement and find your job family and level. If it's a licensee or outsourcing partner, the MA000041 tables above are your floor.

Then verify: run recent payslips through our payslip checker, price your weekend and evening hours with the penalty rates calculator, and quantify any gap with the back-pay calculator before raising it with payroll in writing. The Fair Work Ombudsman (13 13 94) pursues underpayments at no cost, with a six-year recovery window.