The 2024-25 Australian industry profit split: benchmark your sector before budget season

A sector average is a starting point, not a verdict. It blends businesses of every size, region and product mix into a single line. Your result can sit well above or below the sector and still be sound, because your cost base, your stage and your local market are not the average. Wages are a good example. Across the country, the largest growth in wages and salaries was in New South Wales, up $16.1 billion or 5.7%. If your team sits in another state, that figure describes someone else's year, not yours.

So use the benchmark to ask sharper questions, not to grade yourself pass or fail. Did your operating profit move with your sector or against it? If it moved against it, you want to know why before the board asks. A number without its sector context is easy to misread in both directions: a good year can look ordinary, and an ordinary year can look like a win.

Three comparisons carry most of the signal when you sit your result next to the release.

1. Operating profit before tax. Put your movement next to the sector movement from the release. A construction firm up 3% sat below its sector's 9.0%, and that gap is worth explaining to the board before someone else spots it.
2. Industry value added. This is your income minus the cost of the goods and services you used. It shows whether you are creating more value, not just booking more revenue.
3. Wages growth against value added. If your wages are rising faster than the value you add, margin is under quiet pressure. Track the two side by side rather than in separate reports.

You do not want to rebuild this comparison by hand every September. Put it on the board dashboard as standing tiles that update themselves.

• A sector benchmark tile that shows the latest ABS movement for your industry.
• A your-against-sector delta, so the gap is one number rather than a slide the reader has to assemble.
• A wages-to-value-added ratio, tracked over time so pressure on margin shows early.
• A refresh note that shows when the benchmark was last updated, so nobody quotes a stale figure in a meeting.

The figures here come from the ABS Australian Industry release for the 2024-25 financial year, published on 18 September 2026. It is an annual release, so the next update will land around the same time next year. Record the release date on your dashboard and diarise the next one, so your benchmark stays current instead of drifting a year behind without anyone noticing.

1. Pull the ABS line for your own sector and note the operating profit movement for 2024-25.
2. Add two tiles to your board dashboard: the sector benchmark and your delta against it.
3. Book the benchmark into your reporting cycle so the comparison is standing, not a yearly scramble.

Do that once and the nagging question, is our number normal for our sector, has a standing answer instead of a gut feel. If you want the tiles built for you, start with the KPI Tracker at /subs-services/kpi-tracker.

1. ABS Australian Industry, 2024-25 financial year (accessed 2026-09-20)