Workforce profile
As at 30 June 2025, we had:
- 98,461 employees (headcount) or 78,423.1 full-time equivalent (FTE)
- 3.1% of the total workforce providing corporate services and 96.9% frontline and frontline support based on FTE
- 79.4% of the total headcount staff employed permanently, 12.5% temporary staff and 8.1% are casual or contract based on headcount
- 53.8% of the total headcount staff employed full-time and 46.2% part-time or casual.
Additional performance information relating to our workforce is available in
Appendix C.
Redundancy information
During 2024–25, one employee received redundancy packages at a cost of $38,322.53.
Table 7: Gender
| Woman | 76,511 | 77.70% |
| Man | 20,599 | 20.90% |
| Non-binary | 228 | 0.20% |
| Another term | - | - |
| Not disclosed | 1,123 | 1.10% |
Notes:
Reflects standard Department of Education reporting for the Public Sector Commission.
* Calculated on headcount.
Table 8: Diversity target group data
| Women | 76,511 | 77.70% |
| Aboriginal Peoples and Torres Strait Islander Peoples | 2,589 | 2.60% |
| People with disability | 5,239 | 5.30% |
| Culturally and linguistically diverse—speak a language at home other than English^ | 3,986 | 4.10% |
Notes:
^ This includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages or Australian South Sea Islander languages spoken at home.
* Calculated on headcount.
Table 9: Target group data for women in leadership roles*
| Senior Officers (Classified, s122 and s155 combined) | 197
| 70.90% |
| Senior Executive Service, High-level senior executives and Chief Executives (Classified, s122 and s155 combined) | 61 | 64.20% |
Notes:
* Excludes school-based leaders.
** Calculated on headcount.
Strategic workforce plan
In 2024–25, the Queensland teaching workforce strategy 2024–27 was launched to raise the profile of the teaching profession and highlight the need for targeted, localised responses to evolving community and workforce needs.
The strategy represents a $347 million investment in our teaching workforce, including $129.4 million in new and expanded initiatives, such as the health safety and wellbeing strategy, No Excuse for School Abuse campaign, Rural and Remote Housing Incentive Scheme and Turn to Teaching and Trade to Teach Internship programs.
The department has commenced developing a new workforce strategy to reflect the government's priorities. The new strategy will focus on supporting and building our multi-disciplinary workforce including addressing occupational violence and aggression.
Supporting a diverse workforce
A workforce that mirrors the diverse perspectives, experiences and backgrounds of students and communities is something we cherish and support. By establishing a work environment that is welcoming, adaptable, inclusive, equitable, respectful, accessible and culturally safe, we enable every employee to thrive and realise their potential.
Our approach to enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion is contained within our We All Belong Equity and Diversity Plan. The plan outlines priority actions to drive systemic change in key focus areas, including:
- achieving target workforce participation for identified groups and balanced gender representation in teaching and administrative roles
- achieving proportional representation of target groups across levels of seniority and types of roles
- reducing the gender pay gap
- providing quality learning and development opportunities that promote inclusion, belonging and equitable career progression
- improving inclusion index results in the Working for Queensland survey and school opinion survey
- removing systemic and structural barriers to diversity and inclusion
- relying on accurate and consistent diversity data in evidence-based decision-making.
In 2024–25, we continued to strengthen our workforce diversity, cultural capability and inclusion with a range of initiatives, including:
- releasing our new EnAbled: workforce strategy 2024–2027 to build welcoming, safe, inclusive and accessible workplaces
- raising awareness of the small, easy changes we can all make to remove barriers for people with disability during Disability Action Week
- holding learning and development sessions to build capability of staff and leaders in how to apply inclusive, equitable, accessible and culturally responsive practices in their everyday work that supports Aboriginal staff and Torres Strait Islander staff; staff with disability; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and other identities (LGBTQ+) staff and culturally and linguistically diverse staff
- releasing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural capability self-assessment tool to help staff and leaders understand where they sit on the continuum of learning cultural capability and their next steps for development
- joining the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower initiative to recognise and support those with less visible disabilities at work
- creating connection through stories and celebrating differences during Multicultural Queensland Month
- identifying inequity and potential causes through analysis of workforce data and reporting the department's findings.
Employee relations frameworks
We are committed to meaningful engagement with employees to enhance their work environment.
We ensure that payroll system updates are undertaken to support the implementation of new certified agreements, including processing back payments in compliance with the relevant certified agreement.
In 2024–25, we introduced a self-paced online training package for school leaders and business managers to support understanding and compliance with certified agreements for teacher aides and cleaners. Guidance, examples, key terms and how they apply to managing teacher aides and cleaners are explored in the training.