% of population - Source frequency: annual · Methodology · Corrections
Australia's adult literacy rate was 49.0% as of January 2025, and the trend is broadly stable. Proportion of adults (15+) with at least Level 3 literacy skills on the PIAAC scale. Literacy underpins participation in the workforce and civic life. Low literacy limits economic mobility. Data is sourced from OECD PIAAC Survey; ABS Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies and updated annually.
Proportion of adults (15+) with at least Level 3 literacy skills on the PIAAC scale.
Literacy underpins participation in the workforce and civic life. Low literacy limits economic mobility.
Higher is better
Source: OECD PIAAC Survey; ABS Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies
GREEN = favourable trend within acceptable band of baseline. AMBER = flat or mild change. RED = unfavourable trend beyond threshold.
This data is sourced programmatically from official statistical APIs and data feeds (OECD PIAAC Survey; ABS Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies), updated annually. The source link above points to the human-readable publication page, which presents the same underlying data in a different format (e.g. Excel workbook, PDF release). Our pipeline fetches the machine-readable version automatically and converts it to the standardised format shown here.
See all sources and methodology on the data sources page.
