Financial Services Market Update January 2026
A Sector in Transition
The financial services recruitment landscape in early 2026 reflects a sector in transition. 2025 brought consolidation, cautious budgeting, and accelerated adoption of technology and offshoring, but signs of renewed confidence are emerging as firms finalise operating models and integration programs. Teams saw a year of measured recalibration rather than aggressive growth, with teams scrutinising workflows for efficiency in the midst of tech advancements and offshoring trends, which has led to redefined structures and a modest uptick in recruitment to support these optimised models.
As funds wrap up integration efforts, the outlook for 2026 appears more optimistic, with increased contract opportunities arising from firms fine-tuning their ideal operating setups. This environment has fostered greater cross-functional collaboration, examples being between front-line teams, compliance, and risk as well as between member education, marketing, advice, and digital.
Investment compliance stood out as a consistent recruitment driver in 2025, fueled by funds’ diversification into alternative assets and heightened regulatory demands. Across the board, organisations are prioritising the seamless integration of AI and advanced technology into processes, especially in risk, compliance, and broader finance functions, to enhance efficiency, decision-making, and oversight. Customer-driven pressures further shaped talent needs, as managers bolstered origination, credit underwriting, and portfolio monitoring capabilities to meet sustained investor appetite.
Recruitment has increasingly grown into a more candidate-driven market where professionals are selectively pursuing industry-specific strategic roles to shape their long-term careers: whether mid-to-senior legal talent eyeing moves from private practice to in-house positions, or investments specialists viewing wealth management as a compelling, less heavily regulated alternative to environments like superannuation.
These dynamics highlight both challenges and opportunities in financial services talent acquisition. To dive deeper into the specific areas shaping hiring today, click the sections below to jump straight to your topic of interest:
- Risk, Compliance, Legal
- Investments
- Investment Operations
- Funds Distribution
- Wealth and Advice
- Member Services and Education
- Marketing, Communications, Digital, Product
- Finance and Accounting
Risk, Compliance, Legal
Risk
Risk has seen a big finish to 2025 in terms of volume of roles and active candidates in the market, with a notable uptick in contract requests from employers to shore up teams and projects this year. The biggest changes observed in skill sets heading into 2026 were AI and technology in Risk, with an increasing desire to see candidates upskill and utilise tech and AI tools more frequently to reduce heavier administrative tasks and reporting requirements, helping companies become more tech-friendly.
Lines of Defense
Line 2 risk will continue to be an area of focus in 2026 across financial services, particularly with tranche 2 regulations set to come into effect in 2026. Line 1 risk and collaboration with Line 1 compliance and AML teams will be an important aspect of job descriptions and criteria for hiring this year as well.
Increased Regulatory Scrutiny
Wrap platforms are becoming more prominent in hiring risk professionals, especially in the aftermath of First Guardian and the need for tighter and more stringent risk teams. This will continue in 2026 and beyond as these teams look to utilise strong risk professionals to shore up emerging risks and strengthen existing governance practices internally.
Looking Ahead: What’s next for 2026?
As per our 25-26 Salary guide released in Q4, Superannuation, Private Credit Funds and scaling FinTechs and Wrap platforms will continue to be at the forefront of new role creation with GRC professionals in this space in high demand. We are forecasting more hiring in operational risk and governance, which had previously seen more stagnant hiring in Q4 as organisations focused on enterprise risk as well as emerging risk professionals in the wake of CPS 230 reforms.
Compliance
The Australian compliance market within superannuation and funds management experienced a year of significant activity in 2025, shaped by regulatory developments, heightened investor expectations, and the growing integration of technology into compliance functions. Hiring trends reflected strong demand for professionals across investment compliance, anti‑money laundering, and privacy, with firms competing for candidates who could combine technical expertise with strategic oversight.
Investment Compliance
Investment compliance was a major driver of recruitment throughout the year. As funds diversified into alternative assets, regulators placed greater emphasis on mandate monitoring and fiduciary obligations. This created opportunities for compliance professionals who could navigate complex investment structures while also leveraging technology to deliver real‑time monitoring and reporting.
AML and Financial Crime
AML hiring surged in 2025, largely due to the expansion of obligations under Tranche 2 reforms. Superannuation trustees and wealth managers faced heightened scrutiny, prompting firms to strengthen transaction monitoring, customer due diligence, and suspicious matter reporting frameworks. Collaboration across compliance, risk, and front‑line teams became a key criterion for recruitment.
Privacy
Privacy compliance also gained momentum, driven by updates to the Privacy Act and growing consumer awareness of data protection. Superannuation and fund managers are increasingly embedding privacy into their digital transformation strategies, creating demand for professionals with expertise in privacy risk assessments, cyber resilience, and cross‑border data governance.
Looking Ahead to 2026
Overall, the 2025 candidate market was competitive, with experienced compliance professionals commanding premium salaries. Firms faced challenges in attracting talent with hybrid skill sets that combined regulatory depth with technological fluency. Superannuation and funds management offered career stability and growth, drawing candidates from banking and broader financial services into the sector.
Legal
The legal space over the last 6 months experienced several highs and lows in the number and types of opportunities in the market, given significant constriction across multiple private practice and Big 4 consultancy firms.
Junior Market Overview
The junior end of the market saw the largest contraction in private practice and Big4 Consultancy as firms looked to technological and AI solutions for narrow use cases, reducing the total volume of graduate and trainee roles on offer. This constraint is likely to impact the pools of talent available for financial services businesses to draw from down the track, as a consequence of fewer experienced professionals in the market. As a result, we have seen a huge amount of activity in the junior space, with many junior legal professionals actively on the lookout throughout 2025.
Conversely, internal teams in financial services have been observed building out broader capabilities, causing hiring increases. These opportunities generally start at the 2-3+ PQE levels, and opportunities for juniors remain a rarity.
In 2025, we observed more conservative employee movement as professionals postponed external career searches until 2026. For most mid-senior professionals in the private practice space, an opportunity to move in-house drove some market buoyancy as the promise of broader roles and higher workplace flexibility remained the draw card.
Role Creation and Job Titles
In terms of role creation, we have seen some newly created roles in the legal space come from investment management firms and superannuation investment teams that have been actively looking to add to their traditionally lean legal teams.
Preferred titles for professionals remain a sticking point for candidates with 2-3 years’ PQE, who feel that moving from a Senior Associate title in practice to a more standard “Lawyer” or “Junior Lawyer” remains a perceived step down, despite the increased remit and depth of responsibilities on offer in an internal role. It means that firms looking to add Legal Counsel or Lawyer roles to their team need to be sure that the PQE requirement will be reflected in the seniority of the role title if they want to attract top talent.
Salary Information
Salary considerations have increased, with an expectation from most candidates active in the market this year being that if they were to move in 2026, they are seeking a 10-15% increase on their current package and while some employers will be able to comfortably match this desire, but in other industries such as wealth advisory, superannuation and others, there are stricter budget constraints and more focus on a candidate’s drivers and motivations to move.
Skills Shortages
Employment law/workplace relations has been a niche area of the market in 2025, with a limited pool of individuals who have a genuine breadth of skills coverage, meaning potential upskilling in this area could be an advantage when applying for new positions. Corporate, commercial and generalist legal skill-sets remain in demand but also in high volume from candidates, so showing additional areas of expertise is key to keeping your position as a candidate high in the market.
Investments
Across the investment landscape, calendar year 2025 marked a period of consolidation rather than expansion, with recruitment activity relatively subdued across investment teams when compared to previous years.
After several years of accelerated growth, many super funds entered 2025 with the perception that they had “over-hired”, prompting a measured reset of headcount and a renewed focus on internal efficiency. In parallel, larger super funds, most notably AustralianSuper, continued to redeploy investment capability into global financial centres such as London and New York, reflecting both the scale of their portfolios and the limitations of the domestic market. Aware Super and Australian Retirement Trust are expected to follow a similar redeployment and offshore hiring trajectory.
These structural shifts led to several redundancies and, in some cases, reduced local hiring for highly specialised investment roles. Structural change remained another defining theme. Super fund mergers, including Spirit Super and CareSuper, as well as Team Super, redirected executive and senior leadership focus toward operating-model alignment, governance uplift and portfolio rationalisation. Encouragingly, toward the latter part of 2025, we observed a modest uptick in recruitment activity to support these new operating models, with most hiring occurring at the Analyst and Senior Analyst level.
At the time of writing, there is also some uncertainty within the TelstraSuper investment team regarding the implications of the proposed Aware Super merger.
Candidate movement patterns shifted in notable ways. Kaizen observed increased interest from investment professionals exploring opportunities within the wealth management sector, particularly as several wealth managers continue to scale and build more sophisticated investment teams aligned to servicing high-net-worth and wholesale clients. These organisations are increasingly viewed as an attractive alternative career pathway to the more heavily regulated superannuation environment.
Traditional fund managers continued to face a challenging operating backdrop, with ongoing fee pressure and limited appetite for incremental investment headcount. The clear exception remained private debt, which once again demonstrated strong and consistent growth. Managers expanded origination, credit underwriting and portfolio-monitoring capability in response to sustained investor demand.
Overall, 2025 has been characterised by stabilisation, selective restructuring and evolving career pathways for investment professionals. As we move into 2026, we anticipate a gradual improvement in hiring sentiment as funds complete integration programs and reassess capability requirements aligned to new strategic cycles.
Investment Operations
Hiring within the investment operations space has remained steady throughout the 2nd half of 2025, with a noticeable uptick from November to December.
Private markets maintain strong growth (particularly private credit firms such as Wingate, MaxCap, and Qualitas) with super funds increasing allocations to infrastructure, real assets, and private equity, driving demand for talent in portfolio monitoring, valuations, fund accounting, and performance analytics.
In contrast, actively managed public funds continue to face outflows, driven by consolidation and insourcing within the superannuation sector, increasing market concentration, and fee compression. As a result, hiring across this segment has remained relatively flat.
The instability from ongoing mergers continues to reduce senior leadership roles, create duplication, lead to restructures, and increase demand for change, transition, and integration talent. We have also observed an increase in fixed-term contract roles in investment operations as many firms remain cautious about long-term commitments in the current environment and view contracting as a more appropriate interim solution.
Significant expansion at firms such as Vanguard, VanEck, and Global X has driven new hiring across the ETF ecosystem, despite a notable talent shortage – particularly at the Manager level and above.
We have also observed a rising demand from investment firms for candidates with strong data analytics capability and a process-improvement mindset. Candidates with purely operational BAU experience are increasingly being encouraged to broaden and enhance their skill sets in these areas. Firms continue to prioritise candidates with experience in Aladdin, Charles River, SimCorp, and Power BI/SQL/Python. Investment operations roles are increasingly becoming data-enabled, not just BAU-focused.
Candidate supply is high at senior levels, but demand is strongest at mid-level operational roles. Heads of Investment Operations and COOs have been the most affected by recent organisational restructurings. Many at this level remain on the market for 6–12 months, often exploring more junior positions or pivoting to consulting. The trend has shown little change over the past year.
Hiring activity remains concentrated at Senior and Manager levels, where firms continue to prioritise high-quality operational talent. This sustained demand has driven clear upward pressure on salaries in this band.
Fund Accounting
While hiring in the broader investment operations space remained steady throughout the second half of 2025, fund accounting recruitment increased noticeably during the same period, likely driven by resignations triggered by elevated work volume and stress following the financial year-end busy season.
It remains difficult for junior candidates to secure work. In roles where hiring managers have shown flexibility on experience levels, junior candidates have lost out to senior ones due to their ability to hit the ground running and take less time to get up to speed. Across the board, there has been an increase in requests for candidates to have strong Power BI and SQL skills, which has replaced the previous need for candidates to be advanced Excel users.
In most cases, hiring freezes have been lifted following the initial caution caused by instability in global markets. That said, there has been a greater percentage of roles being recruited on a contract basis due to questions about the long-term future of roles in this area. This has been evident in organisations considering the best solution to develop an optimal long-term operating model for their business, particularly fund managers and superfunds subject to takeovers and mergers.
Funds Distribution
Distribution remains a cornerstone of Australia’s funds management industry, but the past six months have brought notable shifts:
- Institutional channels continue to contract;
- Wholesale is surging;
- Retail is seeing selective growth in passive and multi-asset strategies.
These trends are reshaping hiring patterns, salary expectations, and the skills needed to stay competitive.
Retail
Hiring for distribution professionals across the retail landscape has been modest but steady, with activity coming mostly from passive Funds/ETFs and multi-asset managers. Fee pressure and product innovation remain a defining theme, reinforcing the dominance of ETFs and managed accounts as advisers seek cost-effective, transparent solutions. While adviser numbers remain low, the shift toward scalable, tech-enabled distribution continues, and over 50% of advisers are using Managed Accounts.
Wholesale
Wholesale remains the most active area for recruitment, particularly in private markets where private credit is leading the charge.
Most opportunities are coming from less established managers who tend to lack the platform access and research ratings, creating a challenging opportunity to raise capital in an already challenging capital raising environment.
Experienced wholesale BDMs with strong networks across private wealth and family offices are in high demand, and they are increasingly selective about opportunities. Salary pressure is evident, with proven BDMs commanding premium packages as competition intensifies. Managers competing in this space need a clear point of difference to attract both investors and talent, whether through product innovation, structure, or access.
Institutional
Institutional distribution continues to shrink. Super fund consolidation and insourcing have reduced external mandate opportunities, and hiring in this channel is limited. There are currently over 100 APRA-regulated super funds, with that number expected to be almost halved by 2030.
The trend is toward junior backfills as senior roles are made redundant, reflecting leaner coverage models and cost-control. Managers are pivoting resources toward wholesale and retail channels, where growth opportunities are more dynamic.
Talent and Role Demands
Most in-demand roles (candidate perspective): Positions with global managers, particularly offering multi-strategy private markets exposure. Despite global equities leading the charge for the last 5 years, global private markets opportunities have been an attractive option, with strong capital raising occurring in this space.
Most in-demand talent (employer perspective): Experienced wholesale business development managers (BDMs) with deep networks across private wealth and family offices and a track record of capital raising.
Wealth and Advice
Adviser Numbers and Regulatory Pressures
The financial advice industry continues to face structural challenges, with Adviser numbers falling to approximately 15,500 as of today, which has almost halved in comparison to 6 years ago. The decline has been driven by mounting compliance obligations and heightened regulatory scrutiny, which is further emphasised and will continue following the collapse of First Guardian and Shield Master Trust.
Talent Shortage and Hiring Trends
The adviser exodus has created a severe talent shortage, particularly for professionals with portable client books and holistic advice experience. Superannuation funds have responded by expanding advisory teams to meet compliance requirements and rising member demand for comprehensive financial guidance. These roles offer structured environments and member-first principles, which appeal to advisers seeking stability after years of industry upheaval. Hiring activity reflects these pressures: experienced advisers remain highly sought after and increasingly selective, while junior roles are growing as firms attempt to fill gaps. However, many new entrants lack the depth required for complex advice, reinforcing the need for robust training and development strategies.
What’s next
Financial advice is still highly in demand, leading to managed accounts and simplified advice models gaining traction, offering scalable solutions for both clients and advisers. This shift underscores the importance of technology-enabled delivery and flexible service models. Firms that can balance compliance obligations with innovation and client-centric solutions will be best positioned to succeed. Looking ahead, the challenge for wealth managers is twofold: addressing the talent shortage while meeting evolving client needs in an environment of heightened regulatory oversight.
Member Services and Education
Evolving Priorities in Member Services and Education
2025 highlighted a year of evolving priorities and growing strategic importance for Member Services and Education teams in the superannuation sector. Member-centric skills remain paramount, with funds seeking professionals who combine empathy, clear communication, and deep superannuation knowledge to guide members through critical life events such as retirement, redundancy, or hardship. Personalised support continues to be valued (especially via phone and email for high-stakes conversations), while digital tools such as AI chatbots, virtual assistants, webinars, and CRM systems aim to enhance reach without replacing human engagement.
Outcomes-Driven Service
Outcomes-driven service has emerged as a key focus, with teams measured on engagement, fund consolidation, contribution growth, and retirement preparedness. Cross-functional collaboration with marketing, advice, and digital teams is increasing, reflecting the strategic integration of member education with broader fund objectives. The industry has also seen shifts due to insourcing, outsourcing, and mergers, requiring adaptable talent with the ability to navigate system integrations, cultural alignment, and evolving service models.
Candidate and Employer Priorities
Candidates increasingly value genuine flexibility, long-term development pathways, supportive management, and streamlined recruitment processes. Professionals are seeking roles with structured growth into advice, compliance, or operations, alongside opportunities to upskill in customer experience, digital tools, and regulatory knowledge. Employers are looking for talent with strong superannuation understanding, compliance awareness, communication skills, and digital confidence. Gaps remain in tailoring conversations to member needs and articulating impact on KPIs and outcomes.
Salary Benchmarks
Salary benchmarks reflect growth and differentiation between in-house funds and fund administrators, with senior roles commanding between $105K–$160K for funds and $90K–$135K for administrators, depending on experience.
Looking Ahead to 2026
Looking to 2026, the focus will remain on strategic member outcomes, enhanced digital integration, and attracting adaptable, high-performing professionals who can deliver personalised guidance at scale. MS&E roles are now recognised as critical, strategic functions driving member satisfaction, retention, and financial well-being, not just operational support.
Marketing, Communications, Digital, Product
The latter part of 2025 has seen a significant uplift in career opportunities across Marketing, Communications, Digital and Product disciplines. This growth has been predominantly driven by contract roles, with organisations seeking talent for 3, 6 and 12-month engagements.
Several factors can be seen contributing to this trend. Budget constraints continue to limit permanent headcount approvals across the sector. Additionally, superannuation funds and other fund management organisations are taking a cautious approach to permanent appointments while they finalise new operating models, with contract resources providing flexibility during this transitional period.
Communications
Regulatory communications expertise remains in high demand, particularly for professionals who can develop Product Disclosure Statements (PDSs), Significant Event Notices (SENs) and similar compliance documents. However, the scope has expanded beyond traditional regulatory writing. There is growing emphasis on “plain language” capability – professionals who can assess member understanding of technical documents and improve clarity and accessibility. This reflects a broader industry shift toward customer-centric communication that balances regulatory requirements with genuine comprehension.
Marketing
There has also been considerable movement at senior marketing levels, driven by both fund mergers and restructures, as well as leadership resignations, creating opportunities for experienced marketing leaders. While Sydney continues to hold the balance of power in terms of volume of marketing roles, Melbourne is seeing particular demand amongst smaller funds. These organisations are making leadership changes and actively seeking new perspectives and capabilities at the Marketing Leadership level.
Digital
Digital specialists continue to be highly valued, particularly those with capabilities in website optimisation and platform management. However, the market is showing a clear distinction in how digital expertise is being deployed at different seniority levels.
More senior digital professionals are increasingly being absorbed into broader Marketing leadership roles, where digital capability is expected as part of a wider skill set. Alternatively, experienced digital practitioners are leveraging their technical expertise to transition into Digital Project roles, reflecting the growing complexity of digital transformation initiatives across the sector.
Product
The Product discipline presents a mixed picture. Contract roles remain the dominant hiring model, consistent with broader market trends. However, there is sustained demand for technical product professionals who can navigate the complexity of superannuation and funds management product structures, regulatory requirements, and member needs.
As we move into 2026, organisations are increasingly favouring professionals with “J-shaped” skill sets – individuals who combine broad marketing and communications capability with deeper expertise in one or two specialist areas. Rather than seeking pure specialists or complete generalists, the market is valuing this hybrid approach.
This preference reflects how teams are being structured in the current environment. With leaner resourcing and flatter organisational models, there is a practical need for professionals who can operate effectively across multiple disciplines while maintaining genuine depth in their core areas of expertise. The emphasis is on adaptability and breadth of thinking, without compromising on the quality of specialist knowledge required for complex projects.
Finance and Accounting
The recruitment market for Finance and Accounting professionals across the financial services industry has remained steady throughout 2025, with cautious but selective demand for professionals in all areas, particularly for those working in tax, reporting and data analytics.
That said, overall headcount growth has softened, driven in part by ongoing consolidation among superannuation funds and mutual banks, many of which adopted a conservative hiring approach during merger activity. Salary movement has also been modest and remains well below the peak increases seen in 2021–2022.
Tax remains the most candidate-short discipline within accounting and finance. Businesses are increasingly seen to prioritise hiring activity at the Manager and Senior Manager levels rather than at the Senior Accountant level, as seen in previous years. This evolution stems largely from the offshoring of many junior roles. This, coupled with the growing use of AI tools to support process-heavy and transactional work, prompted a need for more senior expertise locally.
The market for professionals working in Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A), Treasury, and Financial Controllership has stayed consistent, with the main purpose of most hiring activity focused on replacing incumbents and backfilling roles rather than genuine team expansion.
Meanwhile, the market for Financial Transformation specialists has seen a modest resurgence as organisations gain confidence in the economic outlook and commit to allocating their budgets for long-awaited ERP upgrades. To keep costs in check, most opportunities in this space are temporary, typically contract roles lasting 6, 12, or 18 months long with clear deliverables outlined from the start.
Predictably, the slowest segment of the market remains at the CFO and CFO-1 level, where movement has been limited. For organisations that have recruited at this level, significant weight has been placed on leaders who can bring sector-specific experience and proven success in digital transformation, cost optimisation, team development and strategic business partnering.
Looking ahead to 2026, the market is expected to continue strengthening gradually as confidence builds and major mergers conclude. Candidates considering their next move should prioritise developing skills in AI and automation, which are increasingly embedded across the finance function. At the same time, strong soft skills and the ability to influence and partner with businesses will continue to command a premium, particularly in senior roles.
Get in Touch
Based in Melbourne and Sydney, Kaizen Recruitment specialises in financial services recruitment across funds management, wealth management, superannuation, investment consulting and insurance. If you’d like to discuss candidate career drivers and the current state of the market within the financial services recruitment landscape, feel free to reach out to us with your details below.
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