Workforce profile
As at 30 June 2026, we had:
- 100,074 employees (headcount) or 79,635.3 full-time equivalent (FTE)
- 3.1% of the total workforce providing corporate services and 96.9% frontline and frontline support based on FTE
- 77.9% of the total headcount staff employed permanently, 14.2% temporary staff and 7.9% are casual or contract based on headcount
- 53.6% of the total headcount staff employed full-time and 46.4% part-time or casual.
Additional performance information relating to our workforce is available in
Appendix C.
Redundancy information
During 2025–26, no redundancy, early retirement or retrenchment packages were paid during the period.
Table 5: Gender
| Woman | 77,854 | 77.8% |
| Man | 20,858 | 20.8% |
| Non-binary | 259 | 0.3% |
| Another term | - | - |
| Not disclosed | 1,103 | 1.1% |
Notes:
1 Reflects standard Department of Education reporting for the Public Sector Commission.
2 Calculated on headcount.
Table 6: Diversity target group data
| Women | 77,854 | 77.8% |
| Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples | 2,578 | 2.6% |
| People with disability | 5,354 | 5.4% |
| Culturally and Linguistically Diverse—Speak a language other than English at home1 | 4,485 | 4.48% |
Notes:
1 This includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages or Australian South Sea Islander languages spoken at home.
2 Calculated on headcount.
Table 7: Target group data for women in leadership roles1
| Senior Officers (Classified, s122 and s155 combined) | 190 | 70.6% |
| Senior Executive Service, High-level senior executives and Chief Executives (Classified, s122 and s155 combined) | 62 | 63.3% |
Notes:
1 Excludes school-based leaders.
2 Calculated on headcount.
Strategic workforce planning
The department is committed to workforce planning through a coordinated and sustained set of activities, ensuring we have the right people, in the right roles, with the right skills, at the right time. We know that a system that values and supports its workforce, with a focus on attracting high-quality candidates and retaining experienced staff, is best placed to meet educational priorities, system goals and positive outcomes for every student.
The department is committed to supporting the early childhood education and care sector to grow and develop their workforce to ensure the government can achieve its objectives of ensuring all Queensland children have the best start to life prior to attending full-time school.
The Queensland Early Childhood Workforce Strategy 2025–28 sets the direction for growing and retaining a high-quality early childhood sector workforce. The strategy outlines actions to attract, retain and elevate early childhood professionals across the state. It recognises the need to build a pipeline of qualified educators through stronger career pathways, practical training opportunities and strategies to support workforce development.
Strengthening the department's education workforce
The department has developed a range of strategies to build a skilled, inclusive and diverse workforce that underpins Queensland's world-class state school education system.
The Queensland Teaching Workforce Strategy focuses on building, supporting and sustaining a professional teaching workforce that reflects and supports Queensland's diverse students and communities. It addresses workforce challenges through programs and initiatives, including local solutions for evolving needs and targeted actions to empower First Nations educators. The department is progressing work on a new strategy to support Queensland's teaching workforce and respond to emerging priorities.
The EnAbled workforce strategy 2024–2027 commits to creating inclusive, accessible and supportive workplaces where employees with disability can thrive, and students can see themselves represented in their teachers and leaders. Key priorities include:
- raising awareness of non-visible disability through the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower initiative and building staff capability to foster inclusive workplaces
- increasing the visibility of leaders with disability as role models for career progression
- ensuring accessible workspaces, information and services to support employees with disability.
Supporting a diverse workforce
We value and cultivate a workforce that reflects the diverse perspectives, experiences and backgrounds of our students and communities. By fostering inclusive, equitable and culturally safe workplaces, we enable every employee to thrive and reach their full potential.
Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is outlined in the We All Belong Equity and Diversity Plan, which focuses on driving systemic change through key actions, including:
- increasing workforce participation of identified groups and achieving balanced gender representation in teaching and administrative roles
- ensuring proportional representation of target groups across seniority levels and role types
- reducing the gender pay gap
- providing learning and development opportunities to promote inclusion, belonging and equitable career progression
- improving inclusion results in the Working for Queensland survey and School Opinion Survey
- removing systemic and structural barriers to workplace diversity and inclusion
- using accurate and consistent workforce diversity data to inform evidence-based decisions.
We conducted an annual Equity and diversity audit to support development of the next Equity and diversity plan. The audit examines workforce equity and diversity across the employee lifecycle, identifies where inequities may exist and highlights contributing factors. These findings will inform future work to strengthen the department's approach to equity and diversity.
We celebrate our diverse workforce and communities year-round, recognising and valuing the unique contributions of all individuals. Throughout the year, we also mark significant occasions for employees such as NAIDOC Week, Multicultural Queensland Month, Disability Action Week, International Women's Day, International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, and National Reconciliation Week to honour and celebrate the rich diversity, cultures and achievements within our organisation and the broader community.
Empowering our workforce
The department is committed to creating accessible and inclusive communities that support and empower all people with disability to realise their potential.
Our
Disability Service Plan 2025–2028 reinforces this commitment by outlining key actions to deliver inclusive, supportive, and empowering services and spaces that support our workforce and learners.
Reframing the relationship
We are committed to reframing our relationship with Aboriginal communities and Torres Strait Islander communities through partnership, respect and shared responsibility.
Our
Reframing the Relationship plan 2025–2028 commits to developing our cultural capability. The plan was co-designed in consultation with Aboriginal staff and Torres Strait Islander staff and embeds cultural capability, accountability and collaboration across the department.
This commitment is reflected across key strategies, including our Brighter futures education strategy, which emphasises collaboration to close the gap and empower individuals to achieve their full potential, and the Early Childhood Workforce Strategy which was co-designed with Aboriginal educators and Torres Strait Islander educators.
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.