Almost every student asks this, and almost every consultancy answers it with an "average salary" figure that means nothing. Averages include people who have been in the country for ten years.
What matters is three numbers you can actually check: the legal minimum wage, the legal hours you may work during term, and the rent where you would be living.
The table
| Minimum wage | Term-time hours | Roughly per month | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | AUD 33.05 casual | 48 a fortnight | AUD 3,437 |
| New Zealand | NZD 23.95 | 25 a week | NZD 2,595 |
| Canada | CAD 17.60 (Ontario) | 24 a week, 20 from Sept 2026 | CAD 1,830 |
| UK | £12.71 (21+) | 20 a week | £1,101 |
| USA | ~USD 12 to 16 on campus | 20 a week, campus only | ~USD 1,100 |
All figures before tax, at the legal minimum, working the full legal hours.
Australia wins, and it is not close
AUD 33.05 an hour is the casual rate from 1 July 2026, and it includes the 25 percent casual loading that almost every student job carries. Forty-eight hours a fortnight at that rate is around AUD 3,400 a month.
That is roughly double what a UK student earns and it is the honest reason Australia stays popular despite having the worst refusal rate of the five.
The catch is that casual work has no floor. The rate is excellent and the hours are not guaranteed. A quiet fortnight in a café is a quiet fortnight in your bank account, so budget on the rent rather than on the good months.
New Zealand has the best ratio
The highest wage against the most generous cap: 25 hours a week since November 2025, up from 20, at NZD 23.95.
Against Auckland rent of NZD 250 to 400 a week, a student here covers living costs more comfortably than anywhere except Australia. The constraint is the job market rather than the pay: it is the smallest of the five, so the first job takes longer to find.
The UK is the one people miscalculate
Twenty hours at £12.71 is about £1,100 a month. Outside London that covers rent and food and very little else. In London it does not cover rent.
That single fact is the strongest argument for looking at Sheffield, Coventry, Leicester or Sunderland before you look at London. A room outside London is £600 to £900; in London the same room is £1,100 to £1,500.
Canada depends entirely on the city
CAD 1,830 a month sounds workable until you put Toronto or Vancouver rent against it: CAD 700 to 1,100 for a shared room, 1,200 to 1,600 for one to yourself.
The students who make Canada work financially are almost always the ones who chose a college in Brampton, Surrey or Winnipeg. Minimum wage is provincial too, so the province changes both sides of the equation.
The USA is the outlier, and the restriction is the point
Twenty hours a week, on campus only. There is no falling back on a warehouse or a restaurant when campus jobs run out, and they do run out.
Assume American study is funded by family or by a scholarship. The exception is a postgraduate teaching or research assistantship, which is the only well-paid campus option and is worth chasing before you have an offer.
The rule that applies to all five
Work covers living costs. It never covers tuition.
Every one of these countries requires you to evidence the first year without counting a job you have not got yet, and every one of them means it. Budget as though the job does not exist, and treat anything you earn as a cushion.
If the plan only works because of part-time earnings, the plan does not work, and a visa officer will see that before you do.
Work out the full cost of each, or run the reality check, which asks what you can evidence and ranks the five for you.