Medical Disclaimer: This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute medical or legal advice. AHPRA registration requirements, Medicare billing rules, and industrial award rates change regularly. Always verify with AHPRA, Services Australia, and your medical indemnity insurer before acting on any information here.
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Hiring managers and practice owners sourcing short-notice locum cover, understanding market rates, and managing compliance requirements.
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International medical graduates and staffing agencies navigating AHPRA registration, visa pathways, and the Australian healthcare system.
In This Guide
The Top Locum Agencies in Australia
[10 min read | Locum Pay & Rates | June 2026]
TL;DR: Australia has well over a hundred locum agencies, and they vary widely in the support, pay transparency, and shift flexibility they offer. This guide compares five of the most widely used agencies (Medrecruit, Wavelength International, Blugibbon, Aussie Locums, and Hopmedic), explains how agency margins affect what you take home, and sets out what to check before you sign. It also looks at how a direct marketplace differs from the traditional agency model. For the registration rules that apply to every locum whoever places the shift, start with AHPRA.
📌Key Facts
Australia has well over a hundred locum agencies, from large national firms to niche telehealth providers.
Agencies take a margin on every shift they place, sitting between the hospital rate and what you are paid.
Every locum needs current registration, medical indemnity insurance, and a Medicare provider number to bill, no matter who books the work.
How do I choose the right locum agency in Australia?
Choosing a locum agency is really a choice about a trade-off: how much support you want versus how much control you keep. A larger agency can handle credentialing, travel, and rostering for you, which is useful when you are new to locum work or moving between states. A smaller or more specialised agency may know a particular hospital network or specialty far better, but offer fewer shifts overall.
Whichever you pick, the clinical bar does not move. You must hold current general or specialist registration with the Medical Board, administered through AHPRA, and you remain responsible for your own continuing professional development under the RACGP and your college framework. An agency can chase paperwork on your behalf, but it cannot hold your registration or your CPD for you.
A practical way to narrow the field is to write down what matters most to you: total pay, predictable rostering, a specific region, or the freedom to accept and decline shifts week to week. Agencies tend to optimise for the hospital that pays them, so the closer your priorities sit to the hospital's, the smoother the relationship usually feels.
Which locum agencies are most widely used in Australia?
The five agencies below come up most often in conversations with Australian locums. Each has genuine strengths and genuine limitations, so treat this as a starting point rather than a ranking.
Medrecruit is one of the larger medical recruitment firms in the country. It offers end-to-end support including paperwork, credentialing, and travel, and covers a wide range of specialties and hospitals. The trade-off is scale: some doctors report slower responses, a less personal service, and job boards that occasionally list shifts that are no longer open.
Wavelength International has decades in the market and places doctors into both locum and permanent roles. Its roster management and longer-term planning can give you stability across months rather than weeks. The flip side is that it can feel hospital-led, with less favourable rates when demand is soft and less room to hand-pick individual shifts.
Blugibbon has strong hospital relationships, particularly for emergency roles, and covers both metro and regional sites. It handles credentialing and shift logistics well, though shift options can be narrower in some specialties, and agency fees and hospital commissions can limit how much you negotiate directly.
Aussie Locums is Australian-owned with a broad network that spans several disciplines, not only doctors, and lists plenty of rural and regional work. That breadth can mean support is less tailored to doctors specifically, and there may be less flexibility on pay.
Hopmedic focuses on telehealth and newer care models, including areas like medicinal cannabis, and suits doctors who want to work remotely. As a smaller, niche provider it offers fewer traditional hospital placements, and some of its listed shifts are aggregated from other agencies.
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Match the agency
Pick an agency whose hospital network and specialties line up with where you actually want to work, not just the one with the most listings.
How do agency fees and margins affect what you earn?
When a hospital books a locum through an agency, it pays an hourly or daily rate to the agency. The agency then pays you and keeps the difference as its margin. That margin covers the agency's recruitment, credentialing, and admin costs, and it is the main reason the same shift can pay differently depending on how it is booked.
There is no single published per-day locum rate in Australia, because rates move with location, specialty, hour of day, and how urgently the shift needs filling. What is anchored is the underlying award floor. The Fair Work Ombudsman sets out the Medical Practitioners Award MA000031, which defines minimum pay for employed medical practitioners and is a useful reference point when you are sanity-checking an offer.
The point is not that agencies are overcharging, but that the margin is often invisible to you. If two agencies offer you noticeably different rates for similar work at the same hospital, the gap usually sits in their margins and overheads, not in the hospital's budget.
What should you check before signing with a locum agency?
Before you accept your first placement through any agency, run a short checklist so nothing stalls on the day. First, confirm your registration is current and unconditional with AHPRA. Second, check your medical indemnity insurance covers locum and the specific work you will do; the Australian Medical Association publishes guidance on indemnity for doctors in varied work arrangements.
Third, make sure you hold a Medicare provider number for each site where you will bill, which is administered through the Department of Health and Aged Care. Fourth, ask the agency for its fee structure, cancellation terms, and how and when you are paid, in writing. Finally, read the placement contract for who carries responsibility if a shift is cancelled at short notice.
✓Key Takeaway
Before you accept a placement, confirm your registration, indemnity cover, and provider number are current, and get the agency's fee and cancellation terms in writing.
What does this mean for locum doctors in New South Wales?
New South Wales is one of the busiest markets for locum work, with demand spread across metropolitan teaching hospitals and a long tail of regional and rural sites. National workforce data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that medical workforce supply is uneven between city and country, which is exactly why rural placements often carry higher rates and extra incentives.
For a doctor based in Sydney, agencies like Medrecruit and Wavelength International can be useful because their networks reach hospitals you might not approach directly. For rural and regional shifts, the deciding factor is usually travel and accommodation support rather than the agency brand. Population and workforce figures published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics help explain where that regional demand concentrates.
The choice between an agency and a direct platform in New South Wales comes down to how much control you want over which shifts you take, and how much margin you are willing to give up for convenience.
✓Key Takeaway
In a high-demand state like New South Wales, agencies and direct platforms can both fill your calendar; the difference is how much control and margin you keep.
How is StatDoctor different from a traditional locum agency?
StatDoctor is a marketplace, not an agency. Rather than placing you and taking a cut, it connects doctors and hospitals directly so you choose the shifts you want, where and when you want them. That changes the relationship in a few practical ways: you stay in control of your calendar, the fees are transparent rather than buried in a margin, and the platform is built around the doctor rather than the hospital.
For doctors open to regional work, that direct model can make rural shifts easier to find and compare, without an agency deciding on your behalf. The aim is to give you the upside of locum work, flexibility and choice, without the parts of the agency model that quietly reduce your control or your pay. You can see how the direct approach works at StatDoctor.
Frequently Asked Questions
A locum agency matches doctors to short-term or temporary hospital and clinic shifts. In practice that means advertising vacancies, checking your registration and references, arranging credentialing with the hospital, and often booking travel and accommodation for regional work. The agency is paid by the hospital and keeps a margin on each placement, so its role is part recruiter and part administrator. It does not hold your registration, your indemnity, or your CPD obligations, which remain your responsibility throughout.
Agencies do not usually charge you a direct fee. Instead, the hospital pays the agency, and the agency pays you a rate that sits below what it charges the hospital. The difference is the agency's margin, which covers recruitment and admin. Because that margin is rarely shown to you, the same shift at the same hospital can pay differently through different agencies. Comparing offers across agencies, and against the award floor, is the simplest way to judge whether a rate is fair.
In almost all cases, yes. Even where a hospital provides some cover for work done on its premises, that cover may not extend to every aspect of locum or private work, so most doctors hold their own medical indemnity policy. Before you start, confirm with your insurer that your policy covers locum work, the specialty, and the settings you will work in. The Australian Medical Association publishes guidance on indemnity that is a useful starting point for checking your cover.
Yes, and many locums do exactly that to widen the range of shifts available to them. Registering with several agencies lets you compare rates and pick up work across more hospitals and regions. The trade-offs are administrative: you may complete separate credentialing for each agency, and you need to track which agency booked which shift to avoid double-booking. Keeping your registration, provider numbers, and documents in one place makes managing multiple agencies far easier.
An agency acts as an intermediary that places you into shifts and earns a margin from the hospital. A marketplace connects doctors and hospitals directly, so you browse and accept shifts yourself with transparent fees and no agency deciding on your behalf. The agency model trades some control and pay for convenience and hands-on support. The marketplace model trades some of that hand-holding for greater control, clearer pricing, and a doctor-first design.
It can be. Plenty of doctors build long, sustainable careers on locum work, valuing the flexibility, the variety of clinical settings, and the earning potential. Stability comes from planning: keeping your registration and indemnity current, maintaining relationships with reliable agencies or platforms, and booking ahead during quieter periods. Locum work can also sit alongside a permanent or part-time role, giving you a mix of security and flexibility rather than forcing a choice between them.
For doctors who want more control over their locum career, with transparent fees and the freedom to choose their own shifts, [StatDoctor](https://statdoctor.app) offers a direct alternative to the traditional agency.
> **Disclaimer:** This content is for general information purposes only and does not constitute medical, legal, or financial advice. Always consult a qualified professional for advice specific to your situation.
> **Note on pay rates:** Figures mentioned are indicative only and vary by location, specialty, employer, and individual enterprise agreement.
Dr. Anu Ganugapati is a medical doctor, entrepreneur, and advocate for healthcare innovation. He is the Founder and CEO of StatDoctor, Growth Development Manager at eMedici, and Head of Integrated Health and Education at Health104.
Editorial note·AI-assisted research · Clinically drafted · Medically reviewed
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