Hairdressing courses in Australia: Cert III, costs and where to study

The qualification: Certificate III in Hairdressing (SHB30416)

The national qualification is SHB30416 Certificate III in Hairdressing. As at September 2026 it is still the current code on training.gov.au, but heads up: the hairdressing and barbering qualifications are being rewritten by Service and Creative Skills Australia, with new codes expected to be endorsed around late 2026 and rolled out by training providers from 2027. If a new code lands, your SHB30416 stays valid forever, and anyone partway through gets a teach out period. Always check training.gov.au for the current code before you enrol.

As an apprenticeship it nominally runs about 3 years, but it is competency based: prove you can do the work and you can finish sooner. There is also a pre-apprenticeship option, the Certificate II in Salon Assistant (SHB20216). It is not compulsory, but it gets you basin work, salon manners and a foot in the door, and salons like hiring apprentices who have done it.

What you will actually learn

The SHB30416 Certificate III in Hairdressing packs 28 units of competency: 21 core and 7 electives. Strip away the paperwork and it is a straight run from holding a pair of scissors properly to running a full column of clients. If clippers and fades are more your thing, there is a separate barbering qualification, SHB30516 Certificate III in Barbering, that shares a lot of the same DNA. Here is what the hairdressing units actually have you doing:

• •Nail the basin first: shampoos, conditioning treatments, and identifying and treating hair and scalp conditions like dandruff, oily scalps and damaged hair.
• •Keep yourself and clients safe: salon hygiene, infection control, safe handling of chemicals, and keeping your tools, trolleys and work area sorted.
• •Blow dry and style hair into finished designs, from smooth and sleek to big bouncy volume, using dryers, brushes, tongs and straighteners.
• •Learn the three building blocks of cutting: solid one length shapes, graduated shapes and layered shapes, plus how to design a haircut structure before you pick up the scissors (SHBHCUT001 to SHBHCUT004).
• •Cut hair with scissor over comb and clipper over comb techniques, the bread and butter of shorter cuts and men's work.
• •Get colour theory into your head, then onto heads: tint regrowth, full colour changes, lightening, and neutralising unwanted brassy or ashy tones.
• •Master foils and lightener: full and partial head highlights, plus on scalp full head and retouch bleach jobs (SHBHCLS005), the services that fill a salon's books.
• •Do chemical reformation work: straightening and relaxing hair with chemical treatments, and perming or curl services where your salon and electives cover them.
• •Run a proper client consultation: reading face shapes, hair type and condition, agreeing on a result, and knowing when to say a service is not safe to do that day.
• •Sell retail like a pro: recommending home care products, handling the till and salon financial transactions, and building your own client base that rebooks with you.
• •Work as part of a salon team: communicating on a busy floor, juggling timing when your colour client and your cut client land at once.
• •Pick electives that suit you: long hair upstyling and braiding for bridal and event work, or men's combined cutting, beard and moustache design, and head and face shaving.

Year by year: how the training usually runs

Most hairdressing apprenticeships run about 3 years, quicker than the 4 year construction trades. Every salon and RTO structures it a bit differently, and completion is competency based, so a quick learner in a busy salon can finish early. Treat this as the typical shape, not a promise.

• •First year: at TAFE or your RTO you cover salon safety and hygiene, tools and equipment, basin services, scalp treatments and blow drying, mostly practising on mannequin heads and models. In the salon you are on the basin, greeting clients, passing foils, sweeping and watching senior stylists work. By the end of the year you are trusted to shampoo, treat and blow dry real clients on your own, and your first solid blow dry that a client loves is a genuine milestone.
• •Second year: training moves into the core cutting units, solid form, graduation and layers, plus colour theory, tinting, foils and lightening. On the floor you start cutting and colouring paying clients under supervision, usually beginning with regrowth tints, basic trims and simple foil work. Your logbook of signed off services grows fast this year, and by the end you are handling straightforward cuts and colours start to finish.
• •Third year: the advanced stuff lands, on scalp bleach work, colour correction of unwanted tones, chemical straightening and relaxing, over comb techniques, and your electives like long hair upstyling or men's cutting and beard work. In the salon you build and run your own column of clients, managing consultations, timing and retail sales like a qualified stylist. Once every unit is signed off and your employer agrees you are competent, you finish the apprenticeship as a fully qualified hairdresser, and exactly when that happens in third year varies by state and salon.

Barbering is its own ticket: SHB30516

If you are more clippers and fades than foils and perms, there is a separate qualification: SHB30516 Certificate III in Barbering, also current on training.gov.au as at September 2026 and also part of the same rewrite project. It is offered as an apprenticeship through TAFEs like TAFE Queensland, TasTAFE and CDU, and covers men's cutting, beard and shave work.

Think hard before you pick. Barbering is the narrower ticket. The hairdressing Cert III covers cutting plus colour and chemical work, so it keeps more doors open. Plenty of barbers do the full hairdressing qualification first and specialise after.

Two routes: salon apprenticeship or full-time course

Route one is the apprenticeship: you work in a salon or barbershop, get paid award wages while you learn, go to TAFE or an RTO about a day a week or in blocks, and in most states your training fees are free or heavily subsidised. Check your pay on the Fair Work calculator at https://calculate.fairwork.gov.au/.

Route two is full-time study with no employer: TAFE institutional delivery or a private hairdressing academy, typically 12 to 21 months. Well known private academies include the likes of Biba Academy in Melbourne and Demi International in Queensland. Private academies often do not publish fees up front, but full-fee Cert III hairdressing courses regularly run well over $10,000. For a benchmark, TAFE Queensland lists its full-fee Certificate III in Hairdressing at $15,375 as at September 2026, and CDU has listed domestic full-fee places above $16,000. You graduate qualified but with less salon floor time than a 3 year apprentice, no wages along the way, and possibly a debt. For most people the apprenticeship is the smarter route: you get paid to learn instead of paying.

How you actually enrol as an apprentice

You do not enrol like a uni student. First you get a salon or barbershop to take you on. The employer then signs you up through an Apprenticeship Connect provider (the free government funded apprenticeship support service, previously called an AASN), which sets up your training contract and registers it with your state training authority. You and the employer pick the RTO together, usually the local TAFE or an industry RTO the salon already uses.

Still at school? Hairdressing is available as a school-based apprenticeship in most states, so you can start the Cert III and paid salon work while finishing year 11 and 12.

What it costs, state by state (as at September 2026)

These are the apprentice training fees, not wages. Figures move every year, so treat these as a guide and check the live state page before you sign anything.

• •NSW: hairdressing apprenticeships are fee-free at TAFE NSW and other Smart and Skilled providers under the Fee-Free Apprenticeships program. You may still pay for kits and materials.
• •VIC: Certificate III in Hairdressing is on the Free TAFE list, and TAFEs like South West TAFE list the apprenticeship as Free TAFE for eligible students. If you are not eligible, subsidised tuition is around $1,415 at SWTAFE, with materials and consumables around $3,100 on top, as at September 2026.
• •QLD: under Free Apprenticeships for Under 25s the government pays your training fees if you start before 30 June 2027. Aged 25 or over, funded apprentices pay about $1.60 per nominal hour at TAFE Queensland, as at September 2026.
• •WA: apprentices pay subsidised fees per nominal hour, and eligible younger apprentices have tuition capped at $420 for 2026, with resource fees on top. Check the Jobs and Skills WA fee-free and low fee page.
• •SA: apprentice training is government subsidised through TAFE SA and other providers, with fees varying by unit choice and concession status. No reliable flat figure, so check the live TAFE SA course page.
• •TAS: TasTAFE delivers the Cert III as an apprenticeship only. Apprentices are not eligible for Fee-Free TAFE, and fees depend on subsidy and circumstances, so get a quote from TasTAFE before you start.
• •ACT: CIT charges apprentices per unit of competency, and apprentice rates differ from standard enrolments. Check the CIT fees page or ask CIT directly for a current quote.
• •NT: CDU delivers hairdressing and barbering with Fee-Free TAFE places for eligible NT residents. Once those fill, subsidised tuition is roughly $3,700 to $3,900, as at September 2026.

Who actually pays the fees

In the states where training is not already free, do not assume the bill lands on you. Many salons agree to cover TAFE fees as part of taking on an apprentice, and apprenticeship provisions in awards commonly require the employer to reimburse your training fees and textbook costs unless they paid the RTO up front, as long as you are making satisfactory progress. The Hair and Beauty Industry Award is the one covering most salons, so check its apprentice clauses on the Fair Work website (fairwork.gov.au) and raise it before you sign the training contract, not after the invoice arrives.

Where you can study

Every state has a public TAFE delivering the Cert III: TAFE NSW, the Victorian TAFEs (South West TAFE, Bendigo TAFE, GOTAFE, Kangan and others), TAFE Queensland, North Metropolitan and South Metropolitan TAFE in WA, TAFE SA, TasTAFE, CIT in Canberra and Charles Darwin University in the NT.

On top of the TAFEs there are plenty of private RTOs and academies, from big names like Biba Academy and Demi International to smaller salon-linked training providers. To see every provider approved to deliver the qualification, search the code SHB30416 (or SHB30516 for barbering) on training.gov.au and open the list of RTOs approved to deliver it in your state. Always confirm the RTO is registered and the code is current before paying anyone a cent.

The NSW quirk: it is actually illegal to cut hair unqualified

NSW is the odd one out. Under the Hairdressers Act 2003, you cannot work as a hairdresser for payment in NSW unless you are qualified, and the main way to be qualified is holding the Certificate III in Hairdressing from a registered training organisation. Apprentices are exempt while they are training under a registered training contract, which is exactly how the apprenticeship route is meant to work.

Other states do not have an equivalent law, so this catches people who move to NSW or who learned on the job without a ticket. If you plan to work on the tools in NSW, including barbering work, read the Act or talk to NSW Fair Trading about how your situation is treated. Either way, the practical answer is the same: get the Cert III.

Costs beyond the course fees

Budget for gear even when tuition is free. Your hairdressing kit is the big one: scissors, clippers, brushes, rollers, mannequin heads and a uniform. Providers list kit costs on their course pages and they vary a lot, commonly in the several hundred to $1,000 plus range; as one example, Demi International lists its kit at $940 as at September 2026. Quality scissors alone can cost hundreds, and you will replace and upgrade over your career.

Add textbooks or online learning resources if your RTO charges for them, plus travel to campus for block or weekly training. There is no licence fee to work as a hairdresser (NSW requires the qualification, not a paid licence). Check what support your state offers apprentices, like travel and accommodation subsidies for regional apprentices, through your state training authority, and remember award reimbursement rules can put fee and textbook money back in your pocket.