Sydney has been named Australia’s best city for remote work, despite scoring poorly for living costs, in a new ranking of destinations for flexible workers.
The city recorded an index score of 65.4 out of 100 in research by accounting software provider Reckon. Brisbane came second on 62.2, followed by Melbourne on 59.1.
The study assessed 20 Australian destinations against factors including internet speed, climate, affordability, safety, access to healthcare, culture and fitness facilities.
Sydney’s result comes as working from home remains a significant part of Australian working life. Australian Bureau of Statistics data released in August 2025 found that 36 per cent of employed Australians usually worked from home, unchanged from the previous year and still well above pre-pandemic levels.
Jessica Morris, Reckon’s head of people and culture, said affordability was the most important consideration for remote workers, even though Sydney topped the overall ranking.
“According to our survey, affordability is actually the most important factor for remote workers,” Ms Morris said.
“We asked 1000 Aussies to rank all twelve factors from most to least important when choosing a destination to work remotely from, and living and accommodation costs came out on top.”
Affordability accounted for 18.53 per cent of the domestic ranking, narrowly ahead of safety on 18.15 per cent and health and medical access on 15.66 per cent.
Sydney nevertheless performed strongly across several other measures. It received a perfect safety score of 100, scored 93.1 for culture and sightseeing, recorded the fastest internet result in Australia and ranked third for health and medical access.
“So it’s not that affordability doesn’t matter to remote workers; rather, the ranking shows that a weak score on one heavily weighted factor can be outweighed when a city is strong almost everywhere else,” Ms Morris said.
Brisbane and Melbourne results
Brisbane’s second-place position was supported by a climate score of 98.9 out of 100, the strongest weather result among the top 10 destinations. It also performed well for internet speed, medical access, living costs and fitness facilities.
“Brisbane had the best weather score of any city in the top 10, though across all 20 Australian locations analysed it ranked third for weather, behind Airlie Beach and Cairns,” Ms Morris said.
However, Brisbane’s safety score was 66 out of 100. Ms Morris said its strong internet and fitness results helped offset that weaker performance.
Melbourne came third overall, despite achieving a perfect score for culture and sightseeing. Its main weakness was climate, with the city recording the lowest weather score of any Australian destination in the study.
Weather made up 14.77 per cent of the domestic index, compared with 11.41 per cent for culture. Sydney also scored highly for culture, at 93.1, while performing better than Melbourne on safety and medical access.
“A roughly seven point edge on a mid-weighted factor can’t make up for finishing last on a more heavily weighted one,” Ms Morris said.
The remaining destinations in the Australian top 10 were Perth, the Gold Coast, Canberra, Port Macquarie, Adelaide, Newcastle and Wollongong.
Reckon said its Work and Wander Index measured liveability and practical considerations rather than professional opportunity. It did not assess business conditions, employability, career prospects or staff turnover.
Ms Morris said the ranking therefore could not establish whether workers were choosing destinations for lifestyle reasons rather than professional opportunity.
The research also placed overseas destinations in a separate ranking for Australians considering working abroad. Kuala Lumpur came first with a score of 68, followed by Auckland on 67.2 and Seoul on 66.6.
Ms Morris warned that the Australian and international results should not be compared directly because each destination was assessed only against the other 19 in its own list. The international ranking also used 12 factors, while the domestic index used seven, with different sources for health and safety information.
For those choosing between a domestic working holiday and an overseas base, she said Australia offered familiarity, a shared time zone with family and colleagues, lower travel fares and no visa complications, while international destinations provided opportunities to experience different landscapes, people and cultures.
