Melbourne's highest-income suburbs, 2021: Park Orchards first, five of ten in Banyule, Nillumbik and Manningham
Ranked by households earning $4,000 or more a week in 2021, Park Orchards leads Melbourne's suburbs at 40.3%, against 15.1% across Greater Melbourne, and five of the top ten are in Banyule, Nillumbik and Manningham.
- Greater Melbourne, VIC
At the 2021 Census, no suburb in Greater Melbourne with 1,000 or more residents had a median household income in the highest household income band of the ABS's Census tables, $4,000 or more a week, which thirteen suburbs in Greater Sydney reached, and the highest median was Plenty's, at $3,190 a week, against $1,901 across Greater Melbourne. Ranked by the share of households earning $4,000 or more, Park Orchards in the Manningham council area comes first, with 40.3% of its households in that band against 15.1% across Greater Melbourne. Five of the ten highest are in the Banyule, Nillumbik and Manningham council areas, north-east and east of the city, four are in Port Phillip, Stonnington and Bayside on the inner south side and along the bay, and Canterbury is in Boroondara.
Ranking suburbs at the top of the income scale
The Census asks for income in bands, and the household income bands in the ABS's Census tables, which Censible's figures are built from, end at $4,000 or more a week. The ten suburbs here are ranked by the share of their households in that band, the same measure as the Sydney list, so the two can be read together. A ranking by median household income gives a different ten, with Plenty first, Park Orchards second and Waterways third at $3,013 a week, and Middle Park, Brighton, Toorak and Albert Park outside it, because a median describes a suburb's middle household while the share counts how many households are at the top. Suburbs with fewer than 1,000 residents are left out, because their figures rest on a few hundred households and can move a long way between Censuses.
The ten suburbs
- Park Orchards, Manningham: 40.3% of households earning $4,000 or more a week
- Ivanhoe East, Banyule: 39.2%
- Canterbury, Boroondara: 37.7%
- Brighton, Bayside: 37.7%
- Middle Park, Port Phillip: 37.5%
- Plenty, Nillumbik: 37.1%
- Kangaroo Ground, Nillumbik: 36.7%
- Eaglemont, Banyule: 36.0%
- Toorak, Stonnington: 35.9%
- Albert Park, Port Phillip: 35.7%
Each of the ten has between 2.4 and 2.7 times Greater Melbourne's share of households earning $4,000 or more a week. They range from about 1,200 residents in Kangaroo Ground to about 23,300 in Brighton, and together they had about 24,700 households that stated their incomes in 2021, or 1.5% of Greater Melbourne's 1.7 million. Their combined share of 37.2% is lower than the 57.0% across Sydney's ten, and Greater Melbourne's 15.1% is lower than Greater Sydney's 19.6%.
Just outside the ten are Hampton (35.4%), in the Bayside council area, and Malvern (35.3%), in Stonnington.
Change since 2016
In 2016 Canterbury had the highest share of the ten, at 29.3%, and Kangaroo Ground the lowest, at 22.4%. Across the ten, the share of households earning $4,000 or more rose from 26.6% to 37.2% between 2016 and 2021, and across Greater Melbourne from 8.4% to 15.1%, so the gap widened from 18.2 to 22.1 points while the ten's share fell from 3.2 to 2.5 times Greater Melbourne's. The threshold is a fixed $4,000 in each year's dollars, so part of the rise in both comes from wages growing past it. Kangaroo Ground had the largest rise, from 22.4% to 36.7%, and Canterbury the smallest, from 29.3% to 37.7%, which moved it from first to third.
Kangaroo Ground's figures rest on about 280 households that stated their incomes in 2016 and about 310 in 2021, and Plenty's on about 600 and 690, so a small change in either moves its share further than in the larger suburbs.
Projections for 2026
On Censible's projections, which move incomes forward to 2026 with the ABS wage price index, the ten's combined share of households earning $4,000 or more reaches about 42.6% in 2026 and Greater Melbourne's about 21.3%, with Greater Melbourne's median at about $2,244 a week. Park Orchards stays first at 47.0%, Plenty moves to second at 46.9% and Ivanhoe East is third at 44.5%, all projections that the 2026 Census results will replace.
Each suburb's other Census figures, such as household types, housing costs and work, are in the Censible app, set beside Greater Melbourne and the 2011 and 2016 Censuses, and Greater Melbourne as a whole is covered in Melbourne, 2011–2021.
What to watch in the 2026 Census
Censible's projections put Plenty's median at about $3,735 a week in 2026 and Park Orchards' at about $3,692, close to the $4,000 that starts the highest household income band in the 2021 tables, so the 2026 results will show whether any Melbourne suburb's median has reached it, and the first 2026 Census results arrive in June 2027.
Method
Figures are for suburbs in Greater Melbourne, the ABS's capital city area, from the 2016 and 2021 Censuses, carried onto the ABS's 2026 boundaries with ABS correspondences. Medians are calculated from household income bands, using the ABS's published median where there is one, and shares are of households that stated all their incomes. Suburbs with fewer than 1,000 residents in 2021 are left out, the ten are ranked by the share of households earning $4,000 or more a week, and the combined figures for the ten are calculated from summed counts. Council areas are those that contain each suburb on the 2026 boundaries, and the 2026 figures are projections, with incomes moved forward with the ABS wage price index. More on the method is on Data and sources.
Limitations
The Census records income and doesn't measure wealth, so property, savings and other assets aren't counted, and a ranking by property values would be a different list.
Household income is the gross income of everyone in the household, so a household with several earners ranks above a single earner on the same pay, and dollar figures are nominal.
Income is collected in bands, so the shares can only count households at $4,000 or more a week and can't separate incomes above that, while the ABS calculates its medians from exact amounts, so they aren't capped at $4,000. Households that didn't state all their incomes are left out of both the medians and the shares.
Greater Melbourne's and Canterbury's 2016 figures, and Ivanhoe East's and Eaglemont's figures in both years, are estimates because their boundaries changed between editions.
Figures for 2026 are projections, and they will be replaced by Census counts as the ABS releases the 2026 results from June 2027.
Questions people ask
On household income at the 2021 Census, Park Orchards, in the Manningham council area. 40.3% of its households earned $4,000 or more a week, the highest share of any Greater Melbourne suburb with 1,000 or more residents, against 15.1% across Greater Melbourne. Plenty, in Nillumbik, had the highest median household income, at $3,190 a week. The Census measures income rather than wealth, so a ranking by property values would be a different list.
Ranked by the share of households earning $4,000 or more a week at the 2021 Census: Park Orchards, Ivanhoe East, Canterbury, Brighton, Middle Park, Plenty, Kangaroo Ground, Eaglemont, Toorak and Albert Park. Between 35.7% and 40.3% of households in each earned $4,000 or more a week, against 15.1% across Greater Melbourne.
$1,901 a week across Greater Melbourne at the 2021 Census, on the ABS's 2026 boundaries. Censible projects about $2,244 a week in 2026, moved forward with the ABS wage price index, and the 2026 Census figure will be published from June 2027.
On household income it ranks ninth: 35.9% of its households earned $4,000 or more a week at the 2021 Census, against 40.3% in Park Orchards, and its median was $2,533 a week. The Census doesn't measure property or other wealth.
Sources
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