2021 Job Market Insights

It is no secret that the market in Australia for top tier accounting and consulting talent has never been as hot. We see daily articles across all of the major news outlets highlighting how the large, medium and small professional service firms just cannot hire and grow fast enough.

It is a simple demand versus supply problem. Prior to the pandemic, Australia relied heavily on skilled migrants each year to plug the gap in talent across all industries. For some conte

xt, up the one third of new hires each year across the big consulting firms are from abroad. With the borders closed and demand and growth at records highs in professional services, firms simply cannot find enough people to fill their jobs.

All of this is good news for those of us working in the industry, resulting in significant pay rises, promotions and benefits in the majority of Australia's largest organisations.

Below is a snippet from LinkedIn's latest job openings across the big 4 (noting this doesn’t include the other large consulting firms) and this number is likely much higher given a lot of teams

in the big firms don’t actually advertise open roles on LinkedIn.

This is just the tip of the iceberg; a recent report by the NSW Government stated that Australia "needs an explosive post-World War II-style immigration surge that could bring in 2 million people over five years to rebuild the economy and address worsening labour shortages"

Here at LEMON we've pulled some articles which should give you a flavour of just how in demand your skills are at the moment. Happy reading!

CONSULTING

Every area of consulting is struggling to find the right talent at the moment - from strategy and M&A, operations to more niche skills such as data, analytics and cybersecurity. Companies cannot hire quick enough and are constantly looking for great talent….This gives you great leverage when negotiating salaries and benefits as you look to secure our next role.

Big four firms go on hiring spree as travel bans cut talent pool

EY, which has almost 250 LinkedIn active job ads, has 470 open roles.

KPMG has seven separate “expressions of interest” advertisements for consulting roles in Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart, Sydney, Melbourne, Paramatta and Perth, along with “expressions of interest” job ads for “defence-related specialists”, mergers and acquisitions tax experts and cyber security specialists.

Deloitte has ads seeking audit and assurance experts, and M&A professionals at “multiple job levels”, along with specific ads for programmers, consultants and data experts.

PwC is looking to fill roles such “data assurance” specialists, “health & wellbeing” consultants and actuaries, while EY has multiple roles open for “data engineers”, “digital web producers” and restructuring experts.

Source: Australian Financial Review January 22 2021

Travel ban keeps Accenture consultants out of Australia

“There’s probably two angles you can use to look at this,” said Sarah Kruger, an Accenture managing director and the head of human resources for Australia and New Zealand.

“One is volume. We just need more people across all sorts of different skill areas. The second is there are also specific skill areas where we don’t necessarily have enough people in Australia available.

“We need more business analysts, people in the ICT [information technology and communication] space, particularly cloud computing experts and software engineers

Then in the management consulting space, there’s a lot of skills that we’ve recruited from Eu

rope and the US. A good example of that is in the financial services sector around risk and remediation.

She said the high demand for experienced professionals, from consulting firms and industry, was leading to higher wages.

“The cost associated with [the closed borders], like salaries in general in this sector, are rising quite significantly,” she said. “That’s something we, our competitors and our clients are definitely facing at the moment.

In Australia, Accenture pays more than $68,000 for an analyst (roughly one to three years of experience), more than $96,000 for a consultant (three to five years), more than $130,000 for a senior consultant (five to seven years) and more than $170,000 for a manager (seven-plus years), according to data on company review website Glassdoor and research by The Australian Financial Review.

Source: Australian Financial Review May 21 2021

Batten down the hatches, deals boom coming: M&A heads

M&A heads from Australia’s top companies have put the COVID-19 deal slowdown of last year firmly in the rear view mirror and are gearing up for a bumper 12 months ahead

Deloitte M&A Transaction Services Partner Jamie Irving said the activity was spread across every sector and had been accompanied by a jump in valuations. “This pipeline is something we haven’t seen in a long time,” he said.

“The IPO team is as busy as it’s ever been with the number of IPOs in the second half of this year and even into the next calendar year.

“All sectors are transacting in some way.”

The M&A boom’s biggest drivers were identified as strong balance sheets, cheap credit, strong interest from private equity buyers and growth opportunities in the various sectors.

Source: Australian Financial Review June 6 2021

Behind EY’s raid on PwC’s strategy consultant

A talent shortage and a deal-making boom in Australia have led to consulting firms poaching experts from rivals, with EY’s hiring of seven consultants from PwC’s strategy business the latest example of the heightened competition. PwC Strategy& responded to the talent raid by making lucrative counter-offers to keep staff.

The Australian Financial Review was told of one case where a professional stayed with PwC Strategy& after the firm offered a $50,000 pay bump, for a total package of $200,000, and a promotion fast-track.

A strategy adviser with at least one year of experience will typically expect to earn at least $100,000, plus a bonus, at the major strategy firms

Source: Australian Financial Review June 16 2021

EY tries ‘grow-your-own’ cyber specialists as salaries surge

Surging demand for cyber security specialists has led consulting giant EY to embark on a “grow-your-own” program, where consultants are being re-purposed from less in-demand disciplines, alongside other cyber experts, who are attracting sky-high salaries.

Figures obtained by The Australian Financial Review show EY has a 350-strong team of cyber security experts spread across Australia and New Zealand with financial service cyber security experts able to earn up to $360,000-a-year at the firm.

EY’s cyber security professionals have done work for Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and IAG. Cyber work appeals to the firm due to the high margins – cyber security work, along with consulting services, has margins of 50 per cent, compared to 35 per cent for assurance work. The Financial Review has been told that the maximum pay for EY financial service cyber professionals ranges from $68,000 for graduates, $95,000 for consultants, $150,000 for senior consultants, $180,000 for managers, $310,000 for senior managers and $360,000 for associate partners. The range of pay within each rank varies by level of experience. For example, graduates are all paid $68,000 while the pay for an associate partner can range from $250,000 to $360,000.

Source: Australian Financial Review August 9 2021

PwC to bring forward pay rises, expand bonus pool

PwC will increase the pay of its 8000-strong staff at a faster rate between formal promotions and double to 80 per cent the proportion of staff who can earn bonuses, under new benefits designed to retain and attract employees.The firm will also cut the number of remuneration bands from thousands to hundreds, which will then be applied consistently across the organisation.

A key aim of the new system – which will also include the creation of a PwC training academy – will be to provide staff with more transparency about how pay and bonuses are determined across the firm.

The ‘Total Reward’ changes will mean higher annual pay increases between promotions. The current system provides a substantial pay increase when a person is promoted, which can take years, but much smaller increases between promotions.

In a theoretical example provided by the firm, a PwC professional could expect their pay to increase by five per cent a year over three years before receiving an eight per cent bump when they were promoted to a new rank in the fourth year. Previously, they would have received three per cent pay increases for three years before a larger 14 per cent increase when they were promoted in the fourth year.

Either way, the pay would have increased by 25 per cent, from the theoretical $75,000 to $94,000, over the four years.

The revamped system will also include a $15 million investment in a new learning academy for staff.

The shortage has been due in part to an unexpected rebound in client demand and the loss of a steady flow of overseas staff due to COVID-19 travel restriction. PwC will also broaden its bonus eligibility criteria to ensure that 80 per cent of staff receive the incentive and create a ‘bonus simulator’ that will calculate the potential value of the reward

ACCOUNTING

‘A war for talent’: Accountants prioritised under skilled migration list

Immigration minister Alex Hawke added 22 occupations to the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List (PMSOL) aimed at filling critical skills in Australia amid international border closures. Accountants, taxation accountants, management accountants, external auditors and internal auditors are now part of the PMSOL, with visa processing for these occupations to be prioritised

Chartered Accountants executive Simon Grant said the audit profession was experiencing “a war for talent as a result of the current border restrictions coupled with the longer-term growth in demand for audit professionals”.

Growing shortage of accountants

“Australia faces a growing shortage of accountants. But it’s not just here; accounting professionals are in high demand globally and there is a competition to attract them. Unless this skills shortage is addressed, Australian businesses and the economy will suffer. By increasing opportunities for international accounting professionals and students to live and work in Australia, we are creating a pipeline of accounting talent which will stand the nation in good stead.”

CPA Australia general manager of external affairs Dr Jane Rennie said the inclusion of accounting professionals on the priority occupation list was necessary to address a growing skill-shortage

Staffing crisis hits Australia’s top accounting firms

More than three-quarters of Australia’s largest accounting firms report they are having trouble recruiting and retaining staff, with qualified auditors continuing to be in particular short supply around the country. The shortage is compounded by the country’s closed borders, hindering the ability of firms to import staff even as client demand remains strong.

Accounting firms across the country report they cannot find enough staff despite responding to the tight labour market by raising pay and increasing sign-on and referral bonuses.

Firms are also trying to improve working conditions to make accounting roles more appealing to professionals. This includes automating the repetitive work often involved with accounting to free up more time for advisers to spend with their clients, as well as making hours and working location more flexible.

The demand means strong candidates fielding multiple offers and “bidding wars” are driving up pay across the sector.

PKF Australia chief executive Peter Cannan also said it was difficult to find staff, leading to “upward pressure on remuneration”.

“The market is very much in favour of employees. We are looking to hire experienced professionals with three to ten years of experience across advisory, audit, assurance, tax and corporate finance. ,” Mr Cannan said.

Source: Australian Financial Review October 19 2021