One agency promoted the most staff in the Australian Public Service last financial year as total promotions fell.
The Tax Office promoted the most staff as the public service contracted for the first time since the Albanese government came to power, according to the latest public service employment data.
In 2025-26, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) promoted 2714 of its 20,713 ongoing employees, representing 13.1 per cent of its workforce. Almost all the promotions handed out by the agency were awarded to staff already working there.
The agency had the lowest rate of promotion of all major departments and agencies in 2024-25.
The Home Affairs, Finance and Defence departments had the next highest rate of promotions, recording more than 8 per cent of their ongoing workforce.
The data showed Home Affairs department continued to be generous with its staff promotions despite losing ground in its staff sentiment survey after hundreds of employees took a redundancy payout.
The Attorney-General's and Foreign Affairs and Trade departments followed with 7.3 per cent and 6.6 per cent respectively, while the Veterans' Affairs, Agriculture and Prime Minister departments had similar promotion rates of 5.6 per cent.
A Canberra Times analysis of the employment data focused on the 16 federal departments and the two largest agencies, the ATO and Services Australia.
The total number of promotions in the service fell by about 31 per cent compared with 2024-25.
There were 12,747 promotions across the ongoing public service workforce in 2025-26, which represented 6.8 per cent of ongoing employees, a sharp drop from the 18,457 (10 per cent) in 2024-25 and 22,093 promotions (13 per cent) in 2023-24.
The most common promotion was the band 6 level, which accounted for 29 per cent of all upward moves.
On the other side of the scale, Social Services had the lowest rate of promotions among the major departments. Just 57 (2.4 per cent) of its 2388 ongoing employees were promoted.
Earlier in 2026, the department carried out a voluntary redundancy program with 302 staff accepting exit packages with an insider highlighting a massive drop in morale.
The Industry and Employment departments were next as both recorded a promotion rate of 2.9 per cent. Services Australia also had a similar rate after promoting 974 of its 33,288 ongoing staff.
The drop in promotions reflected broader tightening across the public service as departments and agencies offered redundancies to rein in staffing because of budget pressures and realigned priorities.
Non-ongoing roles fell by about 24 per cent in 2026 compared with 2025, as the total public service headcount fell to 196,322.
The budget cuts and redundancies have taken a toll on public service morale.
The 2026 staff census results recorded lower ratings across key metrics, including wellbeing, engagement, and leadership confidence.
The full census findings will be published at the end of November 2026 alongside the annual State of the Service report.
Promotions were mostly concentrated in the mid-tier level of the public service. Moves to the band 5 and 6 levels made up more than half of all service-wide promotions at 55.4 per cent, while promotions into the Executive Level 1 and 2 cohorts accounted for about 30 per cent.
Advancement into the Senior Executive Service rank remained rare as it represented just 2.3 per cent of total promotions.
The average age of a public servant at the time of promotion was 37.7 years, with female staff averaging 38.3 years compared with 36.9 years for male staff.
Women secured 60.6 per cent of all promotions across the service, matching their 60.3 per cent share of the ongoing workforce.
