A female cleaner has suffered serious facial and back injuries following a violent knife attack at public toilets in a shopping centre in Adelaide's northern suburbs.

Police and paramedics were called to Salisbury's Parabanks Shopping Centre just after 8:00pm on Monday night.

Detective Inspector Naomi Oberscheidt described last night's attack as "concerning".

"It is considerably serious... I understand she does have some significant injuries," she said.

The woman aged in her thirties was taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital and police later described her injuries as "not life-threatening".

Police said a man was seen leaving the toilets a short time after the attack but could not confirm it was a random attack.

"We are unsure, we are keeping an open mind at this point in time," Detective Inspector Oberscheidt said.

Centre management said the cleaner called a security guard on a two-way radio and the guard then called police, who were on scene within a couple of minutes.

Police described the man as of Caucasian appearance, aged in his 30s with facial hair, and was wearing a dark-coloured beanie, jacket, tracksuit pants, black shoes and a white shirt.

"We haven't really been able to speak to the victim too much due to the nature of her injuries, but the one thing that she did mention was that he was wearing a blue beanie," Senior Constable Rebecca Stokes said.

Salisbury Mayor Gillian Aldridge was at the shopping centre last night and said she would speak to council staff to see how they could help the investigation, including providing CCTV footage.

"It's our responsibility and the owners of Parabanks surely to keep people safe so we'll want to know what happened and we'll be looking at that today," Ms Aldridge said.

Centre management said the cleaner had worked at the centre for several years.

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The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) said for the past year it had been running a campaign calling on the local council, centre management and the police to review the safety of workers at Parabanks.

"We've received accounts of workers being assaulted, followed, threatened and robbed in and around Parabanks Shopping Centre and car park," SDA assistant secretary Josh Peak said.

"We're calling on centre management to introduce tougher security and safety measures in the car park including better lighting and more security guards and more CCTV cameras."