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Of the four trades we track across Brisbane and Melbourne, refrigeration has the widest gap between the two cities, and it runs the opposite way to electrical.
SEEK, refreshed 1 September 2026:
The top of the Brisbane range is below the bottom of the Melbourne range. Same trade, same ARCtick licence, $25,000 apart at the floor.
And Melbourne is not even the top of the market. Perth pays $132,000, and Pilbara rosters reach $145,000.
Compare the two cities across trades and the ranking flips.
In Brisbane, electricians outearn refrigeration technicians by roughly $25,000. In Melbourne it reverses almost exactly.
If you operate in both states, that single table should change how you budget. A national salary band applied to both cities will overpay in one and lose you candidates in the other.
[Working theory rather than established fact.]
Melbourne's building stock skews heavily commercial and high-rise, which means chillers, VRF and VRV systems, and building management integration rather than domestic split systems. That work needs a technician with a full RAC01 licence and genuine plant experience, not a split-system installer.
Victoria's climate also produces genuine heating load alongside cooling, so systems run harder in both directions and maintenance contracts are year-round rather than seasonal.
The result is demand concentrated at the experienced end of the trade, which is exactly where the pool is thinnest.
Do not budget from the national average. $85,000 is the national floor and $15,000 below Melbourne's. You will get applications - just not from anyone who has read a job ad recently.
Specify the licence class. "ARCtick licensed" covers twelve different licence classes, and the gap between them is the gap between someone who can work on your plant and someone who legally cannot. Commercial and industrial work needs RAC01. A candidate holding RSS03 is licensed for split systems under 18kW and nothing else.
Picture a shortlist of three for a commercial chiller role: one holds RAC01, one holds RSS03, one holds a recovery-only licence. All three CVs say "ARCtick licensed". Only one of them is a candidate.
Understand what you are competing with. Your Melbourne offer is on the same job board as Perth at $132,000 and the Pilbara at $145,000, and the licence transfers with no retraining. That does not mean you have to match it - most technicians will not take a FIFO roster - but it does mean the ones who would are gone if your offer is soft.
You are in the lowest-paid capital-city market in the country for your trade, and it is not close. Melbourne is $25,000 higher at the floor, Perth is $37,000 higher than your ceiling, and your licence works in every state.
That is worth knowing before you accept a $3,000 rise to stay.
HJ Recruitment places permanent HVAC and refrigeration, electrical, plumbing, fire and solar tradespeople with Australian employers.
Sources- SEEK - AC & Refrigeration Technician salary, Melbourne- SEEK - AC & Refrigeration Technician salary, Brisbane- SEEK - Refrigeration Mechanic salary, Australia- ARC - Refrigerant Handling Licence types
