{"id":81356,"date":"2026-03-26T05:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T18:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/?p=81356"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:53:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:53:33","slug":"war-for-talent-drives-adviser-salary-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/2026\/03\/26\/war-for-talent-drives-adviser-salary-surge\/","title":{"rendered":"War for Talent Drives Adviser Salary Surge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Financial advice practices are facing mounting pressure on staffing costs as competition for talent pushes remuneration packages to new highs, according to new research from Business Health<\/a> and Advisely<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 2025 For What It’s Worth<\/em><\/a> report, which surveyed more than 100 advice practices, paints a picture of an industry under significant workforce strain. Two thirds of firms (68%) are actively looking to hire in the next 12 months, with demand for client-facing support staff (49%) and qualified advisers (39%) topping the recruitment agenda.<\/p>\n

The average total package for an experienced adviser has climbed 23% since 2023 to just under $200,000 according to the report, while client service manager remuneration is up 20% to $92,000 and administration and support roles have risen 17% to $70,000.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Click for a copy of the full report.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The one exception is senior paraplanners, whose total compensation has dipped slightly to $107,397, a trend the report attributes to fewer firms directly employing paraplanners and growing speculation about AI automating key paraplanning functions.<\/p>\n

The average incentive payment across all roles has nearly doubled, up 98% since 2023, with client service managers seeing the largest jump at 187%.<\/p>\n

However, the report raises concerns about the effectiveness of bonus structures, noting a third of firms say their incentive plans are not delivering desired results, half exclude certain staff from bonus eligibility, and 40% base payments on subjective rather than measurable criteria.<\/p>\n

The research also highlights a widening benefits gap between advisers and support staff. While flexible hours and professional development funding are commonly extended to advisers, support and administrative employees frequently miss out.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Graphic and data \/ For What It’s Worth report.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just 42% of practices fund education for support staff, a finding the report warns could make those employees vulnerable to poaching by competitors.<\/p>\n

On workplace flexibility, the back-to-office shift is gaining momentum, with the proportion of firms offering remote work dropping from 92% to 88% overall, and as low as 78% in regional practices. Yet infrastructure to support hybrid working remains patchy with only 4% of firms covering home internet costs for support staff, and just 13% provide ergonomic equipment.<\/p>\n

With salary budgets set to increase by at least 10% at two thirds of financial advice practices, the report concludes that practice principals will need to think strategically about both the composition and the competitiveness of their total employee offer.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Graphic and data \/ For What It’s Worth report.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Financial advice practices are facing mounting pressure on staffing costs as competition for talent pushes remuneration packages to new highs, according to new research from Business Health and Advisely. The 2025 For What It’s Worth report, which surveyed more than 100 advice practices, paints a picture of an industry under significant workforce strain. Two thirds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":81361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,3,4474,270],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-81356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-company-news","8":"category-general","9":"category-practice-management","10":"category-remuneration"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81356"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81362,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81356\/revisions\/81362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riskinfo.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}