By Greg Allan, tradesman and creator of Data First Coaching
Why does the award question trip up security technician businesses?
Most owners in this trade only think about the award once, usually when hiring a new technician or responding to a wage query, and by then the business has often been quoting labour the same way for commercial and strata jobs for some time. A security technician business can genuinely sit across more than one award depending on what each technician actually does on the tools. The Fair Work Ombudsman's own award rules say that if an employer is covered by more than one award, an employee is covered by whichever award contains the classification that best matches the work performed and the industry the business works in, according to the Fair Work Ombudsman's award library entry. That single rule is why one technician running cabling and cameras and another running patrols for the same owner can land in different places.
Which award actually covers security technicians in Australia?
For the install, service and monitoring side of the trade, the Fair Work Ombudsman names the Electrical, Electronic and Communications Contracting Award 2020 [MA000025] as the award that covers alarm and security technicians, alongside electricians, apprentices and other electronic trades. The award's own coverage explicitly includes fire alarms, security alarm systems and surveillance systems, and work connected with installing, maintaining, monitoring, controlling, repairing or testing any intruder alarm system, CCTV, access control system or related network and cabling equipment, according to the award page and the Electrical Award summary. Its classification schedule even lists job titles such as alarm or security technician, electronic equipment tester or installer, and television, radio or electronic serviceperson.
The Security Services Industry Award 2020 [MA000016] is a separate award that covers patrol, guarding and monitoring centre style work, but it specifically carves the installation, maintenance and repair of electronic alarm or monitoring systems out of its own coverage, according to the Security Services Award page. In plain terms, a security technician doing install and service work is pointed back toward the electrical and communications award, not the security services one.
Does it matter whether your techs do alarms, CCTV, access control or all three?
Yes, because the classification inside the award is built around the actual work a technician does, not a generic job title. A technician upgrading an ageing security system for a strata client, or wiring a new access control system into an existing network, needs the same classification clarity as one doing a straightforward alarm callout. Before you can price any of that labour correctly, you need a clear, consistent description of what each role on your crew actually does, because an award only tells you the pay floor once you know which work and which person you are pricing against. This is where many security technician businesses lose money without noticing: a job gets quoted to one method, then run on site to whatever the technician on the day decides is close enough.
Why does getting this wrong cost more than a wage complaint?
If the award and classification are wrong, the real cost shows up in every CCTV install, alarm callout and service contract you quote, long before any wage claim lands. The Fair Work Ombudsman has previously taken action against a security and communications business for underpaying a worker under the National Employment Standards and the Electrical, Electronic and Communications Contracting Award, according to this compliance case. But the quieter cost is the one that never makes the news: a technician's correct hourly cost sitting higher than what was quoted on a commercial maintenance job or a strata monitoring contract that is meant to deliver recurring revenue, month after month, because nobody went back and checked it against the award once the business grew past one or two techs.
This is where AI agents change what is possible for a security technician business. An AI agent is software that does a job the way you would do it yourself, using your prices, your wording and your rules. An agent built around your own job and pay data can check a technician's hours, classification and job type against your pricing before a quote goes out, rather than leaving that check to memory at the end of the quarter when the margin has already gone.
What should a security technician business check before setting pay rates and quotes?
Start from your own data, not memory: which award and classification actually applies to each technician on your crew, based on the real mix of install, service, monitoring and callout work they do. A data first approach looks at what each job actually costs to run, with the right pay rate built in, before it decides whether a quote on a commercial or strata contract is actually profitable. Licensing requirements and the actual licence a security technician holds also sit alongside the award and differ by state and territory regulator, so that part depends on where the business operates and is worth checking directly with the relevant licensing body.
Greg coaches security technician businesses online across Australia, and the coaching starts from the owner's own numbers rather than where the business is based. A security technician business in Australia sits under Commonwealth awards administered by the Fair Work Ombudsman; a security technician business in New Zealand is covered by a different employment system and should check pay and employment rules with Employment New Zealand instead, because the two systems are not interchangeable.
This is general information, not legal, tax or employment advice. Check your own situation with the body named here or a qualified adviser.
Where can you check the current rules?
- Electrical, Electronic and Communications Contracting Award 2020 (MA000025), the award text itself, including coverage of alarm, security and electronic trades and its classification definitions.
- Electrical Award summary (MA000025), a plain language summary of who the award covers, including alarm and security technicians.
- Security Services Industry Award 2020 (MA000016), the separate award for patrol, guarding and monitoring work, and what it excludes.
- Fair Work Ombudsman award library entry (MA000016), the rule for which award applies when an employer could be covered by more than one.
- Security and communications business compliance case, a real example of enforcement action under these obligations.
How does Data First Coaching approach this?
Data First Coaching starts by looking at what each technician's time actually costs on the jobs your business runs, not at the award clause first. Greg Allan built his own trade business before coaching others, and his first question to an owner is usually “What is your method of doing things?”, because an undocumented process produces different results from any technician, award-covered correctly or not. The Trade Business Intelligence reads your own job and pay data to find where a quote, a classification or a process is actually costing margin, rather than where it is assumed to be. The how of fixing it, building the method and pricing it properly, is worked through inside the Academy, with members who are open minded, innovative and willing to share what they learn.
