Market Update – Risk And Compliance

Kaizen Recruitment’s Amanda Chisholm provides insight and data on the recent trends observed within her specialisation (Risk and Compliance).

The current Risk and Compliance market is especially buoyant, with renewed demand for talent as employer confidence continues to grow. 13.5% of roles advertised on active job boards within financial services last quarter were in Risk, Legal, Compliance, Governance and Audit. This has been a 20% increase overall in requests for Risk and Compliance professionals since the Royal Commission 2019.

Top talent in the space remains fairly shallow and has been competitive at times with candidates receiving multiple offers at a time or counter offers from their current organisations. This, combined with an increased demand for niche skill sets such as Investment Compliance and AML/KYC, has resulted in an upward pressure on salaries.

On our initial analysis, salaries have increased across the board, with the most junior roles on Risk and Compliance teams rising from $60K as a minimum entry level salary in 2020 to $90K being the lowest salary placed at Kaizen for this type of role in 2021. As there is often less movement at the upper end of the market, these changes in increased remuneration have filtered upwards, but overall, more moderately at an approximately 10% uplift for the more senior roles in the organisation.

In speaking to the market, these changes seem to be driven by a few factors, one of which being fewer candidates entering the big 4 Consultancy firms and therefore a smaller number of candidates entering the industry later on at the more junior Risk and Compliance Officer/Analyst levels. Additionally, with international borders shut, this shortage is intensified where the demand surpasses the supply of high-calibre talent.

This is now particularly apparent for junior roles where historically this talent gap could be filled by skilled overseas candidates entering Australia on short term or skilled work visas. According to SEEK’s “Overview of March 2021: Highest number of job ads posted in a month in SEEK’s 23+ year history. Applications per ad at lowest level since 2012.” With a lack of talent on the market, candidates are less open to taking on short-term contracts in favour of more secure and permanent options which has put serious pressure on teams as they approach reporting season and undertake large scale technology uplifts throughout the business.

Another driver of recent activity in the space has been the current mergers of several superfunds. These mergers have largely resulted in the restructuring of their Risk and Compliance teams while building out the maturity of their frameworks and controls which has driven a desire for more talent. These superfunds have recently been open to paying higher remuneration to acquire this talent to try to compete with the big 4 banks, which has further increased competition.

Traditionally, these superfunds would prefer candidates coming from a superannuation background, but we have seen an openness to candidates from banking and insurance particularly those who would have operated in more mature Risk and Compliance frameworks due to the nature and standard of their respective regulatory environments.

In conclusion, financial services have remained buoyant and largely quite insulated from the external pressures of COVID-19 across the broader market. The demand for top talent continues to outweigh the supply in the space and employers are having to compete for talent or find ways to preserve their workforce. Candidates have continued to search for roles that provide true flexible working arrangements, remote working, access to industry leaders and professional development in the organisation as key career drivers. And organisations are shifting the search for top talent outside of the traditional pools and are receptive to candidates who possess highly desirable transferrable skills that they can invest in and retain for the long term to come.

Kaizen Recruitment specialises financial services recruitment across funds management, wealth management, superannuation, investment consulting and insurance. We are based in Melbourne and Sydney. For assistance or further information please telephone our office at +61 3 9095 7157 or submit an online form.

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