Accounting and financial services professionals will see salaries grow in 2017
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Average starting salaries for professional roles in the UK have grown by 3.68 per cent in the past three years and the upward trend is set to continue next year, according to Robert Half’s 2017 Salary Guide.
The professional services recruiter projected that salaries for professional roles in finance and accounting, financial services, technology and administration will grow by a further 2.1 per cent in 2017.
Starting salaries for accountancy and finance roles are predicted to rise on average by 2.9 per cent across 100+ positions in SMEs and large businesses.
The most difficult areas to recruit for according to UK CFOs are compliance (cited by 21 per cent), accounting (20 per cent) and business and financial analysis (19 per cent) and this is reflected in higher than average predicted salary rises for financial planning and analysis managers (5.8 per cent), group accountants (3.8 per cent) and financial analysts (3.8 per cent).
Salary rises for compliance roles range from 2.5 per cent for compliance managers to 3.0 per cent for compliance associates.
Salaries are predicted to continue rising for finance and accounting professionals across the board and businesses are eager to hire candidates with the right cultural fit along with technical expertise and experience. Part-qualified candidates looking to advance their careers with the same company are seeing their starting salary offers increase.
Accountancy and finance highest salary rises by role
The emergence of the challenger banking sector and fintech in general is creating strong opportunities for professionals with retail banking skills. This is putting further pressure on the ‘traditional’ financial services sector when competing for new employees. Starting salaries in the sector remain high and are predicted to continue their upward trajectory by an average of 1.7% across all specialisms.
The highest salaries for finance and accounting roles in the financial services sector include those for internal audit managers (3.7%) and financial accountants with up to three years’ Post Qualified Experience (3.6%); the highest salaries for risk professionals include those for senior operational risk managers (5.2%) and operational risk managers (4.3%); and for banking operations roles, operations managers (2.3%) and futures clearing/broker reconciliations specialists (2.3%).
Financial services highest salary rises by role
The huge emphasis on digitisation within organisations across all sectors means companies are heavily focused on growing their technology talent pool. Integration of technology capabilities into business models also means that professionals at all levels need to be more client facing and act as business partners with the rest of the organisation. The need for professionals to build new systems is creating a war for the best talent and salaries for developers and junior developers are predicted to grow above average at 4.5 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively, with salaries for mobile app developers set to rise by 4.3 per cent.
Technology highest salary rises by role
The need for more clearly defined administrative roles is set to continue in 2017 with specialists in telemarketing/telesales expected to reap the highest salary rises at 3.2 per cent, while customer services supervisors (2.6 per cent) and sales assistants (2.4 per cent) will be rewarded for the part they play in retaining happy customers and driving new business. Almost half (46 per cent) of HR directors expect to increase salaries for professional level employees in the year ahead.
Administration and office support highest salary rises by role
Phil Sheridan, Senior Managing Director of Robert Half UK, UAE and South America, said: “Productivity and growth are today’s premium business mantras and the growing skills shortage is one of the key challenges for any organisation to overcome. Competition for the best people is intensifying and as this year’s guide demonstrates, salaries for hard to fill roles continue to rise and outpace the average salary by a significant margin.”
“As businesses undergo planning and recruitment strategies for 2017, they can turn to the latest Salary Guide to ensure they know where the salary hotspots are likely to be and whether they are paying top performers the salaries that competitors are likely to offer in the year ahead.”
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