Financial planners continue to be in short supply, but certain positions are set to be in hotter demand than others in 2025.
No roles in the financial planning industry are particularly easy to fill although positions at either end of the spectrum tend to remain the most challenging, according to Fuse Recruitment national manager for insurance and wealth management Madeleine Martin.
“Experienced advisers are difficult to attract, as they are often self-employed or well-supported by their current employers, making them less likely to leave established client bases,” Martin says.
“Client services roles are also hard to fill, as many experienced candidates are looking to step into more senior positions rather than switch employers for a similar role.”
In particular, Martin says female advisers continue to be in high demand.
“When they do explore new opportunities, they often receive multiple offers due to the limited number of women in the market,” she says.
That’s no surprise given that research from Wealth Data showed just 22 per cent of all financial advisers on the ASIC Financial Advisers Register are female.
Godfrey Group managing director Olivia O’Neill says advice practices are trying to match their client bases by getting diversity at all levels.
“They are conscious of their gender balances, particularly within their adviser ranks,” O’Neill says. “They also want to give their clients a choice, if they want it.”
Underinvestment in new skills
O’Neill has also picked up demand for existing advisers who can look after the established books of other advisers who have left the industry.
“The requirement isn’t necessarily for an adviser to come in and build their own books,” she says. “That’s a change from a few years ago.”
Similarly, Dugald Braithwaite, principal of Recruit 2 Advice, says very few firms have been investing in senior advisers to fuel future growth unless they bring clients and revenue with them.
“Profit is seen as the key driver for this trend,” Braithwaite says.
“With the market shifting to the private sector in recent years, much of the demand is to replace existing advisers to backfill retirements and manage existing client books with revenue. Alternately, firms are employing associates with an eye to the future.”
Indeed, Braithwaite says demand has been patchy.
“We view this as industry-wide underinvestment,” he says.
“Those with new business development skills, networking and client generation capabilities are the most difficult to source in the current market.
“One client recently described it to me this way: ‘Many advisers are good at fishing from a well-stocked pond and are good at signing new clients this way, although not many know how to hunt’.”
Braithwaite adds that unless there is a shift in investment at the succession associate and junior adviser level, to more proactive new business roles, there will be very little change in the market in the short term.
Meanwhile, Vivere Group CEO Chris Gordon has found the recruitment market very active at the wholesale advice level.
“A number of firms that provide wholesale advice have hired new advisers this past year,” he says.
“We’ve also seen some super funds slowly building out their phone-based teams, but retail advice has been slow compared to previous years, possibly due to the number of mergers and acquisitions in the industry.”
Gordon also finds that advisers with client books are in hot demand as are support staff such as client service managers and associate advisers.
“Businesses are trying to attract advisers by saying we have full back-office support so you can focus on your client, especially as they go any mergers and acquisitions,” he says.
On the remuneration side, Braithwaite says it remains a buyer’s market with no evident “war” for talent and very few firms willing to move away from existing remuneration and incentive reward structures.
He says online advertising remains the most common way of recruiting, with networking also being used.
Prospects in 2025
O’Neill expects employment growth to be slower in 2025 because of stubborn inflation.
“Employers remain cautious about adding costs to their businesses while employees at all levels may be less willing to move jobs in the current environment,” O’Neill says.
She believes employers will also look after advisers they want to keep.
Much will also depend on where candidates are based. “For businesses in Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide, there is currently more talent available relative to the number of advertised roles, which may give these locations an advantage over Melbourne and Sydney in attracting talent in 2025,” she says.
The industry is also weighing up how the proposed new class of advisers, announced as part of the government’s second tranche of the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes package in early December, will impact the supply situation.
O’Neill expects this class of advisers to plug the gap for people who can’t afford holistic advice.
“It will also help the industry because it’ll be a training ground for people to study and develop skills. If they’re interested, they’ll go on to become financial planning specialists,” O’Neill says.
For his part, Braithwaite doesn’t expect staff shortages in 2025, noting that much of the gap is being filled by outsourcing and offshoring of advice industry jobs.
“There are presently several thousand candidates sitting offshore who are trained in the Australian financial advice industry,” he says.
“Previously these candidates would have been in Australia being trained, in the main by the large institutions and banks.”
Braithwaite also doesn’t see the Financial Advice Association’s call to engage India as a primary source of talent for the advice industry in Australia as the solution to staff shortages.
“Although migration may play a part, and we already receive a steady flow from the United Kingdom, New Zealand and South Africa who share similarities in structure, culture and language,” he says.
