HAL Bowman, May Market Update

HAL Bowman specialises in helping people within the accounting, finance and administration field to help secure excellent roles.

The most common questions are getting at the moment relate to:

• How salaries are likely to change over the next 6-12 months;

• Businesses attitude to WFH;

Salaries Over The Next 6-12 Months

There has been significant upward pressure on salaries over the last 18 months, largely due to scarcity of qualified labour in the Australian market.

We expect this to flatten out over the next 6-12 months.

To give you some context, depending on the size of business, we have seen recently qualified accountants with 3-5 years experience being offered 80-120K including super.

Salary growth at the more experienced level has been less pronounced.

What should be particularly exciting for people in the accounting and finance space is the quality of roles available to everyone at the moment.

What that means is that businesses are more willing to give people with less experience an opportunity to perform in more senior positions.

Businesses Attitude To WFH

The honest truth here is that most businesses want people in the office.

There are certainly more businesses willing to offer flexibility to experienced professionals however they want to see the person perform in the business prior to offering the option to WFH.

That being said, compared to January 2020, businesses are far more open to having that conversation with employees after they have been with the business for 6 months.

What they are less likely to do is offer it upfront.

We expect the above conditions to continue until the end of the financial year, and may spill over until the early part of the next financial year.

The market is likely to tighten up significantly as people start travelling to Australia again.

Because of the high salary growth it has never been harder to tell the difference between a good job offer and a bad one, so if you are thinking about making a move it is worth speaking with experienced people in your field to find out what skills you need to be developing over the next 6-12 months.

This will help you evaluate your current role against any other roles in the market.

HAL Bowman is always happy to speak with people so if you are interested in discussing any of the above, please feel free to get in contact via email peter@halbowman.com.au.