STEM plays an important part in the Australian Public Service (APS) across many STEM and non-STEM roles.
The Australian Public Service Employment Database (APSED) compiles data on workforce composition, including people working in STEM roles, as well as diversity characteristics.
Publicly funded research agencies (PFRAs) are Commonwealth agencies which typically employ a high proportion of STEM-qualified people.
You can use the following interactive data to compare numbers and employment levels of women and men working in the APS in STEM and health roles as well as non-STEM roles.
Source: Australian Public Service Commission (unpublished)
The Power BI dashboards in the monitor present data in different formats, including charts, graphs and tables. You can customise these dashboards based on what you're interested in.
In 2024, 39% of APS employees working in STEM and health roles were women. This proportion has remained stable since 2022. In comparison, women made up 63% of employees in non-STEM roles.
Of all employees, 12% were in a STEM and health role. This equated to about 23,000 people out of the total 185,000 in all role types. These roles included:
The majority of women working in STEM and health roles were employed at the APS 5 or 6 level. Of all women in STEM and health roles, 55% were working at the APS 5 or 6 level.
Gender equity in STEM and health roles is also highest at the APS 5 or 6 level. Of all people working in STEM and health roles at the APS 5 or 6 level, 43% were women. This compares to:
The calculation of equity by diversity groups data includes APS employees whose diversity characteristics are not known. These groups are not shown separately but are included in the calculation of proportions for completeness.
In 2024, 3% of employees in all APS roles were First Nations people. Around 500 First Nations people had a STEM and health role, accounting for 2% of all employees working in STEM and health. First Nations people made up 3% of employees working in non-STEM roles. First Nations people account for 3.2% of the Australian population, according to the 2021 Census.
The largest numbers of First Nations STEM and health employees were working at the APS 5 or 6 level or APS 1 or 2, trainee and graduate level. The APS 1 or 2, trainee and graduate level had the highest proportion of First Nations employees. At this level, 16% of all people in STEM and health roles were First Nations people. Around 50 First Nations STEM and health employees were working at the EL/SES level, accounting for 1% of all employees at this level in STEM and health roles.
People with disability made up 5% of employees in all roles in 2024. This proportion was the same for people with disability working in STEM and health roles. In comparison, people with disability made up 6% of those working in non-STEM roles.
Around 600 people with disability in STEM and health roles were working at the APS 5 or 6 level in 2024. This represents 54% of people with disability working in STEM and health roles. Across all levels, the proportion of APS employees with disability was between 4% and 6%.
Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people made up 20% of employees in all roles and 27% of those working in STEM and health roles. The largest number of CALD employees in STEM and health roles were working at the APS 5 or 6 level, accounting for 27% of all employees at this level. This is followed by the EL/SES level (2,400), where CALD employees made up 28% of all employees at this level.
The EL/SES level had the highest proportion of CALD employees (28%) in STEM and health roles. Of all people working in STEM and health roles, CALD employees made up between 21% and 28% across all APS levels.
Women in all diversity groups had higher representation in APS STEM and health roles in 2024:
The proportion of women among First Nations employees decreased from 47% in 2023 to 43% in 2024.
You can use this interactive data to compare numbers and employment levels of women and men working at PFRAs in STEM, non-STEM and health occupations since 2020.
Publicly funded research agency data 2024 (unpublished)
In 2024, 69% of all people working in the sampled PFRAs were in STEM occupations, about 10,000 people out of the total 14,000 in all role types. This is a one percentage point decrease from 2023.
Women made up 31% of people in STEM occupations in 2024, a one percentage point increase from 2023. In comparison, women made up 59% of non-STEM and 42% of health occupations in PFRAs.
The largest number of women in STEM were working at the EL1 level (1,011). The largest number of men in STEM were also at the EL1 level (2,413).
Although the EL1 level had the highest number of STEM employees, it had one of the lowest proportions of women in STEM roles in 2024. The gender split for STEM employees at the EL1 level was 30% women and 70% men.
The EL2 level had the largest difference between men and women in STEM roles, with only 23% of EL2 STEM roles held by women. This was a slight improvement on the proportion of women in EL2 roles in 2023, where the gender split was 22% women and 78% men.
The highest proportion of women in STEM roles were working at the APS 1-2 level (48%). This was also true of non-STEM roles, where women accounted for 69% of staff working at the APS 1-2 level.
In 2024, women held 22 of 61 SES positions for STEM occupations. This makes up 36% of SES STEM roles, which is an increase from 32% in 2023.
In 2024, all participating PFRAs included output categories for people who did not identify as a man or woman. Limited analysis on these non-binary and gender diverse people is described below.
There were 65 non-binary and gender diverse people across the sampled PFRAs. Nearly three quarters (72%) of these people were in STEM roles.
While the largest number of women and men in STEM were working at the EL1 level, the largest number of non-binary and gender diverse people in STEM were working at the APS 5-6 level. This included 16 people or 34% of all non-binary and gender diverse people in PFRA STEM roles.
Other non-binary and gender diverse people in PFRA STEM roles were at APS 3-4 level, EL1 level, and EL2 level.
APSED is maintained by Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) from data provided by human resources systems of APS agencies. It stores employment data of all current and former APS employees.
Job roles in the visualisation above correspond to the APS Job Family Framework. STEM roles are not shown separately but combined as STEM and health. This is because data is shown at the job family level of the framework, which includes ‘Science and health’ as one job family. Job Family data is provided voluntarily by agencies and data from earlier years may see a higher volume of data anomalies. In recent years, the APSC has undertaken a strengthened approach to data quality, validation, and collection completeness surrounding Job Family data.
APS job function ‘development program’ is commonly shown in APSED outputs in 2023 and prior years. For the purposes of the STEM Equity Monitor, ‘development program’ has been combined across all years with ‘administration’. All other APS roles, classification levels and diversity information are as provided by agencies to the APSED.
Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) status refers to first language. People in the CALD group had a first language that was not exclusively English.
Staff numbers below 10 are not shown. Data has been suppressed either because the staff number was below 10 (primary suppression), or to ensure staff numbers below 10 cannot be revealed by subtracting from totals (secondary suppression). Suppressed data appears as 0% in the table, and 0 in the chart. As a result of suppressing this data, the sum of staff numbers in the chart may be lower than the totals shown above the chart.
Counts by gender show employees identifying as man or woman. People who use another term to describe their gender are included in all proportions.
Data is not shown separately where First Nations status, disability status, or CALD status is not known. The calculation of percentages in the table includes people whose diversity characteristics are not known and due to this, rows in the table may not add to 100%.
Previous editions of the STEM Equity Monitor used the APS Employee Census, rather than the APSED. From the 2025 edition of the STEM Equity Monitor, the APSED is used instead, because it includes data by diversity groups. Comparisons can’t be made between sources, as one is self-reported by Census respondents, and the other is supplied from the human resources systems of APS agencies.
See more information about the APSED on the APSC website.
This data does not cover all publicly funded research agencies. Workforce data was supplied by the following agencies:
Participating agencies defined which occupations in their agency were STEM, health and non-STEM. They based this either on the department’s methodology or through a self-determined analysis.
Agencies also aligned classification levels in their organisation to equivalent levels in the APS if they do not use standard APS classifications. In some cases classification levels were approximately aligned to reporting broadbands of APS classifications, based on publicly available APS classification band descriptors.
Agencies reported numbers of employees who preferred not to disclose gender. These employees are not presented in the analysis.
Some staff in senior positions may be described as being in management or leadership occupations, so may not be captured in STEM roles and fields in the visualisations above.
Read more about our methodology and this data.
