Best Part-Time Jobs in Perth for Students: Hours, Pay and Applications
The short answer: the best jobs for uni students in Perth are hospitality, retail, tutoring, customer service and warehouse work — because they offer evening and weekend shifts that fit around lectures. Most pay $25–$35 an hour once the 25% casual loading is included, and customer service alone has over 2,700 live Perth vacancies right now.
Perth has four universities inside the metropolitan area — UWA, Curtin, Murdoch and Edith Cowan — and tens of thousands of students competing for the same shifts. This guide covers what each job actually pays, which ones flex around a timetable, and where the vacancies currently are.
How much do student jobs pay in Perth?
Most casual student roles in Perth pay between $25 and $35 an hour. That is higher than the base award rate because casual employees receive a 25% casual loading in place of paid leave, and evening, weekend and public holiday shifts attract further penalty rates on top.
That loading matters more than students usually realise: a Saturday hospitality shift can be worth substantially more per hour than the same Tuesday shift, which is why the students who earn most are the ones who deliberately take weekend work.
Hospitality: the biggest source of student work in Perth
Hospitality is the single largest employer of Perth students, with around 786 live vacancies across the metro area at the time of writing. Shifts are concentrated in evenings and weekends, which is exactly when students are free.
Bar and waiting roles typically pay $27–$33 an hour casual, rising with weekend penalties. You will need an RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) certificate from a WA-approved provider to serve alcohol — interstate RSAs are generally not accepted here, so if you moved from Sydney or Melbourne you will need to redo it.
Northbridge, Leederville, Mount Lawley, Fremantle and the CBD have the densest concentration of venues. Browse current hospitality jobs in Perth or bar jobs.
Customer service and call centre roles
Customer service is the highest-volume category in Perth with over 2,770 live vacancies, and a large share offer part-time or rotating rosters. Pay sits around $28–$34 an hour casual.
These roles suit students better than most people assume: many are phone or chat based, rosters are set in advance, and the work builds communication skills that read well on a graduate CV. See customer service jobs in Perth.
Retail
Retail has roughly 119 live assistant vacancies in Perth, concentrated in the major centres — Perth CBD, Karrinyup, Garden City, Lakeside Joondalup and Westfield Carousel. Expect $26–$32 an hour casual with weekend penalties.
Hiring spikes hard before Christmas, and a strong November–January casual stint is the most common route into an ongoing part-time contract. See retail jobs in Perth.
Tutoring: the highest hourly rate available to most students
Tutoring pays more per hour than any other common student job — typically $35–$60 an hour, and higher for ATAR subjects, maths and sciences. The catch is volume: there are only around 20 formally advertised tutoring vacancies in Perth at any time, because most tutoring is arranged privately or through agencies rather than posted as jobs.
If you scored well in an ATAR subject you are already qualified to tutor it. Working with Children Check is required for under-18 students in WA.
Warehouse and logistics
Warehousing has around 476 live Perth vacancies and pays $28–$34 an hour casual, with night and weekend shifts attracting penalty rates that push effective earnings higher.
The work is concentrated in Kewdale, Welshpool, Canning Vale, Malaga and Jandakot. A forklift licence (LF) takes a few days and immediately lifts your rate — it is the best-value ticket available to a student. See warehouse jobs and forklift roles.
Administration, reception and data entry
Reception has about 381 live vacancies and data entry around 261 in Perth. Both pay $28–$33 an hour and are usually weekday daytime work, which suits students with lecture-free days rather than evening availability.
These are the roles most likely to turn into relevant graduate experience if you are studying business, law or health administration. See reception jobs and data entry roles.
Cleaning
Cleaning has the highest raw vacancy count of any student-accessible category in Perth — roughly 1,886 live roles — and requires no qualification to start. Pay is $28–$34 an hour casual, and early morning or evening shifts fit around a full class timetable better than almost anything else.
Childcare and outside school hours care
Around 220 live vacancies, and the hours are unusually student-friendly: before-school and after-school care runs roughly 7–9am and 3–6pm, leaving the middle of the day free for classes.
You need a Working with Children Check from the WA Department of Communities, and centres will usually hire you while you complete a Certificate III. See childcare jobs in Perth.
International students: the 48-hour fortnight cap
If you are on a student visa (subclass 500), your work rights are capped while your course is in session — currently 48 hours per fortnight — with unlimited hours during scheduled course breaks. The cap is per fortnight, not per week, so you can work more in one week and less in the next provided the fortnight total stays within the limit.
This matters when choosing a job. A hospitality role with variable shifts can be harder to keep inside the cap than a fixed 20-hour-a-week roster. Check the current conditions on your own visa grant, as work rights have changed several times in recent years and your grant is what governs.
Which jobs actually fit a uni timetable?
- Best for evening classes: warehouse (early morning shifts), cleaning (pre-6am or post-6pm)
- Best for daytime classes: hospitality, bar work, retail — all evening and weekend weighted
- Best for a packed timetable: tutoring — you set the hours, and the hourly rate means fewer hours for the same money
- Best for graduate CV value: reception, administration, customer service
- Best around exam periods: anything casual, where you can decline shifts without losing the job
Where to look in Perth
Campus job boards at UWA, Curtin, Murdoch and ECU list roles that are only advertised internally, including on-campus work in libraries, student services and research support — often the most timetable-friendly jobs available.
Beyond that, browse part-time jobs in Perth, casual roles, or jobs requiring no experience.
Rates quoted are indicative casual rates including loading and vary by employer, award and age. Vacancy counts are live figures from our Perth job feed and change daily.
Hiring students? Post a job on Jobs In Perth from $29.
Cluster links and metadata last reviewed: 29 August 2026.