Accounting firms expected to ramp up skill search: Robert Half
Recruitment and hiring are set to “heat up” across the accounting industry in 2025 as firms aim to address skill shortages and climate reporting.
The accounting industry will likely experience an uptick in hiring and recruitment this year as firms look to upskill and strengthen their middle management teams.
According to recent research conducted by recruitment agency Robert Half, accounting firms who had previously let go of middle management teams were now looking to re-establish them.
This was attributed to the realisation that most firms had “very lean teams” and needed to focus on handling organisation costs while driving productivity.
The Robert Half survey encompassed 500 hiring managers across Australia in finance, accounting, business support, IT and technology.
The results highlighted that 34 per cent of firms planned to hire extra finance talent on a permanent basis and 33 per cent had opted to increase the number of contractors on their team in 2025.
Robert Half director Nicole Gorton said the past two years had reflected a slowdown in hiring within the accounting sector which had begun slowly to pick up again.
“Post 2022, companies were hiring non-stop but over 2023 and the first half of 2024 we started to see a real slowdown,” she said.
“Now that companies have realised, they have got very lean teams, there's been a real strong focus on planning and analysis, financial reporting and managing costs effectively.”
“We’re seeing hiring within the accounting space becoming busy again, especially with the complexities around climate reporting and trying to find skills needed to meet them.”
Despite the recruitment market being expected to ramp up over the year, Gorton noted specific challenges would need to be addressed to hire successfully.
Firms hiring would need to ensure they were meeting expectations on salary, office flexibility and the opportunity to upskill.
“There are often three main factors that we’re seeing drive decisions in work style at the moment,” Gorton said.
“People want to know what companies are paying, what office and work-from-home hours they’re offering and if they would be supported with an investment in developing their professional careers.”
“These factors and requirements haven’t always been the case; however, we now see these key aspects being more prevalent today than they have ever been.”
According to the research conducted by Robert Half, accounting firms that had focused on controlling costs and working with a smaller team had experienced increased burnout across their teams.
At the end of 2024, firms began to recognise the common theme of burnout in their employees, which contributed to hiring more staff.
“In 2025 firms will look to provide their employees with a slight increase in salary, thorough annual reviews and adding more people to their teams to reduce the workload and burnout numbers,” Gorton said.
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