Following the member survey 2024, AASW developed its Strategic Plan 2024-2027, setting three strategic priorities:

1. Champion the social work profession
2. Drive professional growth
3. Create a better future.

To enable us to further set operational priorities, we sought feedback via a deeper-dive survey in Feb-March 2025, open to all social workers, regardless of membership of the AASW. By diving into core areas such as advocacy, professional recognition, and engagement, the results have provided us with actionable insights to guide AASW’s decision-making.

Many thanks to everyone who took the time to give their feedback – 3,034 social workers took the time to complete the survey! The findings serve as a practical tool to help AASW strengthen its capacity to effectively represent and support social workers across Australia, ensuring the profession continues to thrive and evolve in response to ongoing and emerging challenges.

The results also give confidence that the findings are generalisable to the wider membership, and give insight to what really matters to our members.

Key Priorities

We asked what social workers want the AASW to focus on, and these are the top themes that came through:

• Upholding Professional Standards (Essential Priority)

Members expect the AASW to safeguard the profession’s integrity, ensuring that qualifications, ethics, and practice standards remain strong.

• Pay Equity & Professional Recognition (Very High Priority)

Social workers overwhelmingly want fair compensation and greater recognition in line with other allied health professionals. This includes title protection, parity in Medicare rebates, and better employment conditions. 

• Government Advocacy & Social Policy Influence (Very High Priority)

  Members want the AASW to engage more actively with State and Federal Governments on both workforce-specific concerns and broader social justice issues. The AASW should continue to advocate on behalf of social workers, ensuring their voices are heard in policy decisions.

• Amplifying the Value of Social Work (High Priority)

  Raising public awareness about the role and impact of social work is also important. Members want the AASW to champion the profession, ensuring it is well understood and respected by employers, policymakers, and the public. This aligns closely with advocacy efforts and also encompasses marketing campaigns and public engagement strategies.

• Supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership & Culturally Responsive Practice (High Priority)

  There is a strong push for the AASW to continue its work in supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership in social work.

Work Settings

Work settings data indicates that social workers are employed across a diverse range of sectors, with the largest proportion (31%) working in private practice or self-employment. This highlights the growing trend of social workers operating independently, particularly in clinical, counselling, and therapeutic roles.

The not-for-profit sector also represents a significant share (30%), reinforcing the profession’s strong presence in community services, welfare organisations, and advocacy groups. 26% of respondents work for state or territory governments, showing a substantial portion of social workers engaged in public service roles such as child protection, health, and social policy.

Other areas of work included Higher Education Providers (10%), for-profit (6%), local government (4%), Federal government (4%), Aboriginal Community Controlled (2%), and other fields (9%).

Primary Field of Work

The survey reveals a broad range of practice areas within the social work profession, highlighting the diversity of roles and specialisations. It highlights the importance of how the AASW considers the breadth of member resources to support the varied fields of social work.

The most common fields of practice among respondents were mental health (50%), counselling (39%), clinical social work (25%), child/family support (25%), family violence (20%), disability (19%), supervision (18%), hospital/health (17%), addiction, alcohol and other drugs (16%) and child protection (15%), indicating a strong presence of social workers in therapeutic and direct client support roles.

9% of respondents selected “other”, with varied specialisations such as forensic social work, Indigenous services, justice systems, research, and trauma therapy.

Years of Experience

The survey results highlight a diverse range of experience levels within the social work profession. Close to a quarter (24%) of respondents have less than five years of experience, indicating a strong presence of early-career social workers. 20% have between 5-10 years of experience, suggesting a significant proportion of mid-career professionals. 33% have over 20 years’ experience, with 1% of respondents having more than 50 years’ experience.

Cultural Diversity

Survey respondents represented a range of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds.

20% identified as being from a culturally and linguistically diverse background, indicating a significant proportion of social workers with diverse heritage. 13% spoke a language other than English at home, reflecting linguistic diversity within the profession. 3% identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, highlighting the presence of First Nations social workers. However, the majority of respondents (68%) did not identify with these categories, and 4% preferred not to disclose their background.

Summary

The survey insights are invaluable in guiding our operational plans, ensuring that we address the key priorities and concerns of social workers across Australia. By capturing a diverse range of perspectives and experiences, the survey highlights the variety within the profession, from early-career professionals to seasoned experts, and across various fields of practice. This comprehensive feedback enables the AASW to tailor our strategies to better support and advocate for social workers.

As a result from your feedback, we will be increasing our focus to communicate the initiatives we’re undertaking on your key priorities: to uphold standards, professional recognition and parity, advocacy and policy, amplifying social work and supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership & Culturally Responsive Practice.

We are committed to making changes based on your input and will keep you updated on developments and opportunities for involvement.