Recruitment agency EST10 surveyed more than 2,000 clients and candidates for its 2026 salary guide. The findings say something useful about how value is being assessed right now – and what that means if you’re thinking about your own position in the market.
The headline number is this: 68% of salary growth in 2025 was driven by capability expansion, not title changes. For EAs, that’s worth sitting with.
Promotion is no longer the primary lever for pay progression. The people earning at the top of the range aren’t necessarily the ones who moved into bigger roles, they’re the ones who expanded their influence within the role they already had.
What capability means in practice
According to EST10 director Roxanne Calder, the distinction shows up clearly when you compare EAs at different salary levels.
Those at the top end are doing more than ‘just’ managing tasks. They’re making decisions, influencing stakeholders and actively optimising how their executive’s time and focus are deployed. They operate with a level of judgement that prevents unnecessary work for the business rather than creating it.
Those in the middle range, Calder says, are often still operating in a task-oriented capacity because they remain too close to execution and too far from decision-making. The difference is whether you’re contributing to business outcomes or simply supporting them.
Titles, meanwhile, are losing relevance. In a tighter economic environment, salary increases have to be justified. What organisations are now willing to recognise as value is shifting away from hierarchy and toward measurable impact.
Why hiring is taking longer (and what to do about it)
Hiring decisions are taking more time across the board. Calder describes this as a shift from reactive hiring to considered hiring, driven by ongoing economic uncertainty and the high cost of a wrong hire.
A new hire’s return on investment now takes around 12 months to materialise, which means employers are applying considerably more scrutiny before committing.
For candidates, this creates a specific challenge. EAs with strong experience are increasingly selective about the roles they pursue. But the process is slower and it’s common to be interviewing for multiple roles without a clear outcome.
Calder’s advice is to treat this as a risk tolerance question rather than an opportunity question – and to be clear-eyed about the trade-offs of waiting versus accepting.
How good judgement gets assessed and demonstrated
‘Good judgement over task execution’ appears in EST10’s list of what hiring managers are now paying for, alongside emotional intelligence, maturity and what Calder calls “stickability.” But how do you demonstrate judgement in an interview?
Calder is direct about this. She advises that good judgement means pausing, assessing and speaking up – questioning a meeting that doesn’t serve a clear purpose, flagging a scheduling conflict before it becomes a problem or sense-checking a decision before it lands badly.
In an interview, hiring managers look for specific examples. Consider a time when you made a call without full direction or pushed back diplomatically on something. The strongest candidates don’t just describe what they did. They explain why and what the outcome was.
At the senior end of the market, this is often the defining capability. It’s what shifts the role from task-based support to trusted partnership.
The PA role and why it’s growing
The personal assistant role has seen the highest increase in both demand and salary across the EST10 data.
Calder attributes this partly to the return of senior expatriate leaders (who are accustomed to a more expansive PA model; one that supports both professional and personal life) to Australia.
But it also reflects a broader pressure. Executives are carrying more responsibilities and higher expectations, and they need support that extends beyond office hours.
Time is the most precious resource at this level, Calder says. A PA who can free up time (professionally and personally) is directly linked to improving an executive’s overall capacity. That’s what’s driving both demand and salary growth.
What to do with this information
If you’re wondering whether you’re being paid fairly, Calder’s advice is to start with the position descriptions and salary tables in the guide – and be honest about where you actually sit. Look at the value you bring and translate it into concrete terms.
Her most useful observation is that most people assess pay fairness emotionally. The market doesn’t. It responds to value, timing and alternatives.
The more clearly you can articulate the impact you have, the less the conversation becomes about what you want. And the more it becomes about what you’re worth.
The 2026 EST10 salary guide, including tables for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, is available at est10.com.au.
