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Finance salaries continue to grow as fintech opens doors

The emergence of the challenger banking sector and fintech in general is creating strong opportunities for accountants with retail banking skills

FINANCE AND ACCOUNTANCY SALARIES have risen by an average 3.68% in the past three years, outpacing the average UK salary rise in 2016, new research showed this week.

The highest average rises in finance and accounting roles in 2017 will be for: financial planning and analysis; project accountancy; and financial control, the Robert Half 2017 Salary Guide found.

According to UK CFOs, the most difficult areas to recruit for are compliance, accounting and business and financial analysis. This is reflected in higher than average predicted salary rises for financial planning and analysis managers (5.8%), group accountants (3.8%) and financial analysts (3.8%).

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%). This is likely as a result of heightened regulatory pressure on the sector due to misconduct scandals.

Starting salaries for accountancy and finance roles are predicted to rise on average by 2.9% in more than 100 positions in small, medium-sized and large businesses, the study found.

“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,” said Phil Sheridan, senior managing director of Robert Half UK, UAE and South America.

The emergence of the challenger banking sector and fintech in general is creating strong opportunities for accountants 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 to rise by an average of 1.7% across all specialisms.

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%).

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