Band 7, senior grade or HP4? How your seniority transfers to Queensland Health grades

On pay alone, an NHS Band 7 clinician (£49,387–56,515, about A$93,820–107,361 at the Reserve Bank’s 27 October 2026 rates) lands inside Queensland Health’s HP3 range of A$83,824–120,740, not at the senior HP4 grade (A$132,689–142,315, from 1 September 2026). That’s a pay comparison, not a grading: the employer decides your grade against the role you’re applying for, and no conversion table, including this one, decides it for you.

I’ve been a senior physio responsible for other clinicians, and as the inaugural director of a hospital I hired across professions. Seniority does transfer, but it transfers through the job you apply for, not through your old title.

The mapping table

Converted at the Reserve Bank of Australia’s rates on 27 October 2026: £0.5264, €0.6286, US$0.7021 and C$0.9841 to A$1 (our calculation). Gross pay only. The last column shows where that pay lands on Queensland Health’s scale, nothing more.

NHS Band 6 and the US OT median are compared with HP3 and HP4 in the OT salary guide.

The Queensland Health side (from 1 September 2026):

HP3 also has a restricted HP3.8 point (A$124,314) that only applies to staff classified a particular way back in 2008, so I’ve left it out of the comparison.

What the table tells you

• Nothing in the left-hand column reaches HP5 or HP6 on pay. Those grades are for specialised clinical roles or formal management. If you’re an NHS 8a or an HSE clinical specialist, it’s the role description, not your current salary, that would put you there.
• The pay gap between HP3 and HP4 is real. The top of HP3 (A$120,740) to the bottom of HP4 (A$132,689) is a jump of nearly A$12,000. That’s why the grade on the advert matters more than any conversion.
• US clinicians look different. The US speech median converts to inside HP4, and the US physio median to just above HP4’s top. Grading still follows the role, not the conversion.
• Exchange rates move. These figures use one day’s rates, and tax, pension or super, leave and living costs all differ by country.

Profession scope, honestly

• OTs: the NHS, HSE and Canadian OT rows apply. The HSE rows are OT grades; we haven’t verified clinical specialist scales for speech or physio in Ireland.
• Speech pathologists: the NHS rows, US and Canadian speech rows apply. In Ireland, the HSE has equivalent grades for speech and language therapists (staff grade 336Y, senior 3379, clinical specialist 3025), but we haven’t verified their pay, so they’re not in the table. Queensland Health employs speech pathologists at HP3 and senior speech pathologists at HP4.
• Physios: the US and Canadian physio rows are physio figures. We haven’t confirmed NHS or HSE physio scales on an official page, so those rows are OT and speech figures only. On the Queensland side, Queensland Health advertises physio roles on the same HP grades, for example a senior physiotherapist at HP4 and an advanced physiotherapist at HP5.
• New Zealand: we haven’t verified Health NZ senior pay figures, so we’ve left NZ out rather than guess.

Private practice works differently

Private employers covered by the Health Professionals and Support Services Award set pay at or above its minimums. From 1 October 2026, the senior levels run from A$1,945.40 a week (Level 2.1) to A$2,499.10 a week (Level 4), full-time. The award lists OTs and physios at AQF level 7 only, so a master’s degree doesn’t lift your award minimum. Speech pathologists are paid by the qualification they hold (AQF 7, 8 or 9). Private practices don’t use HP grades, so ask what level of responsibility and pay the role carries.

How to make your seniority count

Grading is the employer’s call, made against the role description. What helps:

1. Apply for the grade you want. Read the role description for an HP4 or HP5 post and match your experience to it, line by line.
2. Bring evidence, not titles. Supervision of other clinicians, caseload complexity, service development and management responsibility are what a role description asks about. “Band 7” on its own means little to a Queensland panel.
3. Ask how they’ll set your pay point. Within a grade there are several pay points. Ask how your years of experience will be recognised before you accept.
4. Sort registration or assessment first. Your grade means nothing until you can practise: Ahpra registration for OTs and physios, SPA assessment for speech pathologists.

More on Queensland Health’s structure and how it recruits: working for Queensland Health. For OT pay against all five home countries at the clinician level: the OT salary guide.

Your next step

• OTs: check your OT Board route first. It decides when you can start, whatever grade you’re aiming for.
• Speech pathologists: check whether you can use SPA’s mutual recognition route or need the full assessment. Canadian S-LPs can’t currently use the mutual recognition route.
• Physios: check which Physiotherapy Council route applies to where you qualified (Express FLYR, FLYR, APEP or Trans-Tasman).

The pathway check below takes a few minutes and tells you which route applies, so you can plan the move around the grade you’re realistically applying for.