The 16 APS job families, and what work actually sits in each one

It's natural to search by agency, because the agency is the part you've heard of. The service doesn't organise itself that way. It sorts every job into one of sixteen job families, and the family is a better place to start than the department, because the same work turns up in agency after agency, and the family is what follows you between them.

The framework is the Australian Public Service Commission's, it's been running since 2010, and it got a substantial refresh in 2025 to line up with the ABS occupation standard that replaced ANZSCO. It holds 16 families, 51 functions and 229 roles. It exists for workforce planning rather than for job seekers. It's still the closest thing the service has to a map of itself.

What a job family actually is

A family groups work by the skills it needs, and the building has nothing to do with it. A data analyst in the tax office and a data analyst in the health department are in the same family, and they've got more in common with each other than either has with the policy officer two desks away. That's the whole idea. The family tells you where else your evidence travels.

Two recent changes catch people out. The Monitoring and Audit family was discontinued in the 2025 refresh, and its roles moved into Compliance and Regulation and into Accounting and Finance. The Senior Executive family went too, and those roles didn't get a family of their own: a Deputy Secretary, a board member or a branch manager now sits in the Executive function of Business and Organisational Management. If you've read an older guide that lists either family, that guide's out of date.

The sixteen, and the work inside them

The roles under each family are the framework's own, taken from its published list of 229. We show six from each and put the family total beside them, so you can see how much is not on the page. The families are in no particular order.

• ICT and Digital. Infrastructure, software development, cyber security.Example roles, 6 of 28: cyber security analyst, helpdesk or support officer, systems administration officer, DevOps engineer, software engineer, ICT project manager.
• Intelligence and Information Management. Intelligence analysis, records and knowledge management, forensics, and the security adviser roles that sit beside them.Example roles, 6 of 9: intelligence analyst, records management officer, security adviser, forensic investigator, curator or archivist, data and information management officer.
• Service Delivery. The citizen-facing work.Example roles, 6 of 15: call or contact centre officer, client partner or case manager, customer support officer, grants manager, visa and citizenship decision maker, objections and complaints resolution officer.
• Compliance and Regulation. Monitoring, auditing, law enforcement and regulatory work, now including the old Monitoring and Audit roles.Example roles, 6 of 10: investigator, inspector, enforcement officer, compliance case manager, risk analyst, fraud control and corruption prevention officer.
• Policy. Formulation, advice, strategic research.Example roles, 6 of 10: policy officer, policy analyst, economist, governance officer, strategic policy advice and development officer, behavioural insights practitioner.
• Human Resources. Workforce planning, recruitment, culture.Example roles, 6 of 16: human resource adviser, recruitment adviser, learning and development officer, workforce planner, work health and safety adviser, workplace relations officer.
• Accounting and Finance. Budgeting, financial planning, debt.Example roles, 6 of 15: auditor, management accountant, budgeting officer, debt recovery officer, procurement officer, contract management officer.
• Portfolio, Program and Project Management. The delivery framework for major projects.Example roles, 6 of 12: project manager, program manager, portfolio manager, change manager, evaluation officer, project support officer.
• Science. Research, environmental assessment, laboratory work.Example roles, 6 of 24: research scientist, environmental scientist, geoscientist, meteorologist, parks ranger, veterinarian.
• Health. Public health planning, medical advice, healthcare administration.Example roles, 6 of 11: nurse, psychologist or counsellor, social worker, pharmacist, environmental health officer, generalist medical practitioner.
• Data and Research. Statistical analytics, data science, modelling.Example roles, 6 of 16: data analyst, data scientist, data engineer, statistician, business analyst, user researcher.
• Business and Organisational Management. Executive support, general administration, facilities, and the executive tier itself.Example roles, 6 of 15: administrative support officer, personal or executive assistant, business or operations manager, facilities and estate manager, branch manager, deputy secretary.
• Legal and Parliamentary. Legal advice, litigation, parliamentary and ministerial process.Example roles, 6 of 8: legal officer, lawyer, paralegal, freedom of information and privacy officer, ministerial and parliamentary support, administrative review officer.
• Communications and Engagement. Public communication, media, campaigns, design and stakeholder work.Example roles, 6 of 10: communication officer, public relations and media officer, digital channels or social media officer, graphic designer, events officer, stakeholder relationship manager.
• Engineering and Technical. Engineering professionals, technicians and examiners.Example roles, 6 of 17: electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, communications engineer, engineering manager, general technician, registration and intellectual property rights examiner.
• Trades and Labour. The hands-on family everybody forgets is in the APS at all.Example roles, 6 of 13: general tradesperson, security officer, chef or cook, driver, plant operator, air traffic controller.

Why this changes how you apply

Three things fall out of it once you know your family.

1. Your evidence travels further than you'd think. If you're Data and Research, the statistics agency is one employer among many that run data work. Search the work rather than the logo.
2. The family tells you what the panel will weigh. A Service Delivery panel wants volume, judgement under pressure and a real complaint you resolved. A Policy panel wants advice that survived contact with a decision. Same five capability clusters, different centre of gravity.
3. The family isn't the level. Being in the biggest family doesn't make a job easier to get, and moving between families is normal.

How much of the service does this actually cover?

Most of it, though not all. At 30 June 2025, 57 agencies reported job family data covering 174,394 APS employees, which is 87.8 per cent of the service. The other 12.2 per cent, 24,135 people, have no job family recorded at all, so any figure you read about the size of a family is drawn from the reported seven-eighths.

The families that grew most in headcount over the year to 30 June 2025 were Policy, up 2,403, Portfolio, Program and Project Management, up 2,376, Service Delivery, up 2,137, Administration, up 1,874, and Legal and Parliamentary, up 1,352. Growth is not the same thing as vacancies. It is the closest public signal there is to where the service is currently putting people.

The one thing the map won't do is tell you what you're worth. A family is a bucket for planners; a panel is still reading one application, looking for evidence that you can do this job at this level. The family tells you where to look. It doesn't tell you what to say.

The short version

• Sixteen families, 51 functions and 229 roles, and the family follows you between agencies.
• Search the family rather than the department, because the same work sits in agency after agency.
• Your evidence travels wherever your family travels.
• The five fastest-growing families to 30 June 2025 were Policy, Portfolio Program and Project Management, Service Delivery, Administration, and Legal and Parliamentary.
• The map tells you where to look. It does not tell you what to say.

We'd like to help with this

Honestly, this is the part we enjoy. Send your resume through the free review and a real writer will tell you the truth about it within one working day, with no strings attached to it.

And if you would rather not do it alone, the selection criteria service writes the application itself, APS4 through EL2. Veterans and reservists get 20 per cent off every package. We'd love to make you the shoo-in.