Key Medical Specialties in Australia

Australia recognises 60-plus medical specialties across 15 specialist colleges, as listed by the Australian Medical Council (AMC) and approved by the Commonwealth Minister for Health.(ACEM) Below you’ll find an up-to-date overview of the key specialties that drive demand on Medlo’s live job board—complete with insider tips, training snapshots, and links to the relevant locum and long-term shifts.

Table of Contents

1. Emergency & Critical Care
2. Generalist Front-Line Care
3. Internal Medicine Subspecialties
4. Surgical Craft Groups
5. Women’s, Children’s & Family Health
6. Diagnostic & Supportive Medicine
7. Other Growing Fields
8. Next Steps with Medlo

Emergency & Critical Care

Emergency Medicine

• Why it matters: Australia’s ED presentations are rising ~3 % year-on-year, fuelling locum demand from metro trauma hubs to remote retrieval bases.
• Training: 5-year ACEM Fellowship program with optional subspecialty tracks (e.g., toxicology, PEM).
• Locum edge: Flexible rosters (day/night) and premium weekend rates.
• Browse roles: Emergency Medicine shifts nationwide

Intensive Care Medicine

• Snapshot: High-acuity multi-system care, often combined with anaesthetic or physician backgrounds.
• Training: 6-year CICM pathway (dual-training options with ANZCA, RACP).
• Locum edge: Consistently the highest hourly rates on Medlo outside remote GP-anaesthetics.
• Browse roles: Intensive Care shifts across Australia

Generalist Front-Line Care

General Practice & Urgent Care

• Why it matters: GP services deliver >160 million annual consults. Contract length ranges from single-day rural outreach to 6-month DPA coverage.

• Training: 3-4 years via RACGP or ACRRM; additional skill sets (e.g., skin cancer, obstetrics) boost earnings.

• Browse roles:

  • General Practice shifts
  • Urgent Care centre shifts

General Medicine (Hospitalist)

• Scope: Acute care, peri-operative medicine, subspecialty liaison.
• Training: 3-year BPT + 3-year Advanced Training through RACP.
• Browse roles: General Medicine locum shifts

Internal Medicine Subspecialties

Surgical Craft Groups

Australia recognises nine RACS specialties; the most sought-after for locums are:

• General Surgery: Rural elective lists and trauma on-call. → Surgery shifts
• Orthopaedic Surgery: Hip fracture blitzes & sports-injury cover. → Orthopaedics shifts
• Urology: Weekend TURP & stent sessions cut public wait-times. → Urology shifts
• Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery: Skin-cancer excisions in QLD/WA. → Plastics shifts

Women’s, Children’s & Family Health

• Obstetrics & Gynaecology: Shared maternity models boost demand for locum registrars and consultants during peak birth months. → Obstetrics & Gynaecology shifts
• Paediatrics: From regional neonatal retrieval to outpatient ADHD clinics. → Paediatrics shifts

Diagnostic & Supportive Medicine

• Anaesthetics: The backbone of theatre throughput; GP-Anaesthetists remain critical for remote hospitals. → Anaesthetics shifts
• Radiology: Imaging demand is booming (CT volumes up 12 % YoY). → Radiology locum shifts
• Pathology: Public labs seek pathologists for microbiology, haematology, chem-path & more. → Pathology shifts
• Ophthalmology: Cataract “mega-lists” slash regional wait-times. → Ophthalmology shifts
• Pharmacy (Hospital): Med-rec and stewardship programs often back-fill with clinical pharmacists. → Pharmacy shifts

Other Growing Fields

Psychiatry | Addiction, forensic & child / adolescent subspecialties | Psychiatry shifts Allied & Niche | Sexual Health, Occupational, Sports Medicine | Other medical shifts

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Which medical specialty is currently in highest demand in Australia?

General Practice (GP). The 2024 Jobs & Skills Australia Occupation Shortage List flags the ANZSCO code 253111 General Practitioner as in shortage in every state and territory, and multiple recruitment analyses list GPs as the #1 hard-to-fill role ahead of psychiatry and anaesthetics.(Jobs and Skills Australia)

2. What is the hardest medical specialty to gain entry to?

Dermatology consistently tops competitiveness rankings: fewer than 60 ACD training places are offered nationally each year against several hundred eligible applicants, giving an applicant-to-position ratio of 5-to-1 or worse. Other ultra-competitive pathways include neurosurgery, plastic surgery and cardiothoracic surgery, where Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) SET selection success rates hover around 20-25 per cent.

3. Who is the highest-paid medical specialist in Australia?

On the latest ATO taxation statistics (2021-22), surgeons lead all broad occupation groups with an average taxable income of $460,356 AUD. Drilling down, ATO micro-data analysed by AdvanceMed (May 2025) shows neurosurgeons topping the individual specialty list at ≈ $575,700 AUD (mean taxable income), followed by ophthalmologists (≈ $524 k) and ENT surgeons (≈ $469 k).(7NEWS)

4. Which medical specialty earns the least?

General Practice again sits at the bottom: the median GP taxable income was $143,000 AUD in the most recent detailed ATO release, markedly lower than any other specialty group. Within hospital specialties, paediatrics records the lowest mean among RACP fields at $266,800 AUD (2021-22).(AusDoc, thelimbic.com)

What are the highest paying Locum specialties?

Quick takeaways from the Medlo analysis

• Psychiatry leads overall. At consultant level it pays almost 15 % above the consultant average ($229/hr) and roughly doubles the hourly earnings of some lower-paid physician subspecialties. (medlo.com.au)
• Acute front-line work dominates junior grades. Emergency Medicine sits at the top for both registrars and residents, reflecting constant demand for 24/7 ED cover and penalty-loaded nights/weekends. (medlo.com.au, medlo.com.au)
• Pay curve rises steeply with seniority. The best-paid consultants earn ~50 % more per hour than the best-paid registrars, and ~90 % more than resident counterparts.
• Data depth: Figures draw on >18,000 hospital-advertised shifts captured between Oct 2024 and 15 Jun 2025 (4,648 consultant, 10,148 registrar, 3,207 resident), giving a high-resolution view of current market rates across five states. (medlo.com.au, medlo.com.au, medlo.com.au)

Bottom line: If maximising earnings is the goal, senior psychiatrists, acute ED physicians, and palliative/critical-care specialists sit at the top of Australia’s locum pay league—while early-career doctors see the biggest premiums in Emergency, Anaesthetics and ICU.

Next Steps with Medlo

1. Create your free profile in under 2 minutes.
2. Set your availability—our Commission-Sharing model means you keep more of your rate.
3. Apply instantly to any of the above specialties

Whether you’re chasing metro theatres, rural procedures or telehealth contracts, Medlo connects you to Australia’s best-paid medical shifts—fast.

Ready to explore? Browse all live shifts

For the latest specialty definitions, refer to the Australian Medical Council’s List of Australian Recognised Medical Specialties.* (ACEM)