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Here is a fact most solar employers have not sat with properly: if your installers hold electrical licences, they are already qualified for the highest-paid trade market in the country.
They do not need to retrain. They need to answer a job ad.
SEEK, refreshed 1 September 2026:
There is no published benchmark for solar installers - SEEK does not maintain a role page for the trade. That absence is itself informative, and it means a solar installer cannot easily check whether they are paid fairly, while an electrician can.
The pay comparison is one click away. An accredited solar installer doing grid connection work holds a state electrical licence. Every electrician salary page on the internet is describing a job they can already do.
The work is physically harder. Roofs, heat, heights, repetition. Working Safely at Heights certification is a requirement for SAA Install accreditation for a reason. Commercial and industrial electrical work is not easy, but it is not a Queensland roof in February either.
Solar is exposed to policy. Rebate settings, scheme changes and installation volumes move together. Commercial and industrial electrical maintenance is steadier, and people notice which of the two survives a quiet quarter.
The progression is clearer elsewhere. The table above is a visible ladder - technician, commissioning, service manager, maintenance manager, with numbers attached. Solar's career path is less legible.
The accreditation is an asset. SAA accreditation - Install, Design, Design & Install, or GCBS for battery systems - is a credential a general electrician does not hold. It narrows the field in your favour rather than against you.
Batteries are where this gets interesting. GCBS is a separate accreditation from solar install, and battery attachment is growing. An installer holding an electrical licence plus GCBS accreditation sits in a genuinely small pool. That is a scarcity position, and scarcity is what pay follows.
The work is varied and outdoors. Some people take a pay cut for that quite deliberately, and it is a legitimate choice rather than a failure to check job ads.
Establish what you actually hold: your electrical licence class, your SAA accreditation type, and whether you have GCBS.
If you hold an electrical licence and no accreditation beyond Install, your leverage is that you are an electrician. Compare against the electrician bands above and see where you sit.
If you hold GCBS, your leverage is scarcity, and the right move may be deeper into batteries rather than out to general electrical.
Your installers can leave for general electrical work without retraining. That is the position, whether or not it has come up yet.
Three responses that work better than surprise:
Know what your people would earn as electricians. If your Brisbane installers are on $85,000 and Brisbane electricians are at $100,000-$120,000, you are relying on inertia.
Pay for the accreditation and say so. GCBS accreditation funded by you is worth something to them and creates a reason to stay that is not purely money.
Give the ladder a name. Installer to lead installer to designer to project supervisor, with figures attached. The electrical trade has a legible progression and solar frequently does not, and that gap costs you people.
HJ Recruitment places permanent solar, electrical, plumbing, HVAC and refrigeration and fire tradespeople with Australian employers. If you are weighing a move, we will tell you honestly whether it is worth making - including when it is not.
Sources- SEEK - Electrician salary, Brisbane- SEEK - Electrician salary, Australia- Solar Accreditation Australia
