The New Compliance Skillset Australian Financial Services Employers Are Hiring For

The compliance function in Australian financial services is changing shape. The skills that defined a strong compliance professional five years ago are not the same ones moving careers forward today. 

If you work in compliance, risk, or governance, the market is rewarding a specific combination of capabilities: deep regulatory knowledge, digital tool proficiency, and the ability to translate compliance insight into business advice. Understanding what that looks like in practice is one of the most useful things you can do for your career right now 

What is driving the change in compliance capability expectations? 

Regulatory volume and complexity have both increased sharply. According to ASIC’s report REP 798 Beware the Gap, financial services firms are implementing AI more quickly than they are adjusting their risk and compliance frameworks to manage the heightened risks that AI adoption brings, creating a real risk of consumer harm. 

At the same time, APRA has raised the bar on what it expects from compliance functions across every regulated entity. As Assured Support’s data governance guide for Australian financial services notes, regulators expect the compliance function to be intimately involved in supporting, if not leading, data governance projects, and ASIC and APRA now expect documented protocols, testing, and board oversight of AI systems. 

That gap between adoption and governance capability is generating demand for professionals who can operate confidently at the intersection of regulation and technology. 

The result is a skills premium on three capabilities that are becoming inseparable: 

• Compliance literacy 

• Digital tool proficiency 

• Advisory capability 

What does compliance literacy mean in practice today? 

Compliance literacy has always meant knowing the rules. What it means now is something broader: understanding not just what regulations require, but why they exist, how they connect to each other, and how to translate that understanding into practical guidance for a business. 

Regulatory intent matters as much as regulatory content. 

APRA’s Prudential Standard CPS 230 Operational Risk Management, which came into effect on 1 July 2025, is a clear illustration of this shift. Under CPS 230, APRA-regulated entities must manage their full range of operational risks, including legal risk, regulatory risk, compliance risk, conduct risk, technology risk, data risk, and change management risk, with senior management responsible for operational risk management across the end-to-end process for all business operations.  

This breadth of scope means that compliance professionals who understand only one corner of the regulatory framework are increasingly difficult to deploy across the business challenges employers actually face. 

What this means for your career. 

For job seekers, the practical implication is significant. As EY’s analysis of how Australian financial institutions are approaching CPS 230 shows, more than 90% of CPS 230 programmes are being led by an executive, largely Chief Risk Officers, given the cross-functional change required.  

These programmes need compliance professionals who can contribute across legal, technology, operations, and risk. If you can demonstrate that range, you are positioned for roles that sit close to executive decision-making, where visibility, influence, and career progression are concentrated. 

How to build compliance literacy that stands out. 

• Study regulatory frameworks beyond your immediate role, including frameworks adjacent to your current function. 

• Follow APRA and ASIC corporate plans and enforcement updates to understand where regulatory focus is shifting. 

• Develop the ability to explain regulatory obligations in plain language to non-compliance stakeholders. 

• Seek exposure to regulatory change projects that cut across multiple business units. 

Why are digital tools becoming central to compliance careers? 

The compliance technology landscape has matured quickly. Gilbert + Tobin’s 2025 Fintech in Australia guide reports that both ASIC and AUSTRAC have established Innovation Hubs and actively encouraged financial institutions to partner with fintechs to harness regulatory technology, known as RegTech, to automate regulatory reporting, manage compliance, and ensure clarity on how regulation is interpreted. 

This is not a niche interest for technologists. It is a practical expectation for compliance professionals at almost every level. 

What RegTech is being used for right now. 

• Automating transaction monitoring and suspicious activity detection 

• Streamlining regulatory reporting and obligations management 

• Policy testing and control assurance 

• Natural language processing applied to scan new regulations and map them to internal procedures 

What digital literacy looks like at each career level. 

At mid-level roles: 

• Familiarity with compliance management systems and obligations registers 

• Experience with monitoring platforms and case management tools 

• Comfort working with data outputs to identify risk patterns 

At senior level: 

• Ability to assess, select, and govern compliance technology 

• Understanding the limitations of automated tools and the oversight obligations they create 

• Experience contributing to technology governance frameworks 

Why human oversight remains non-negotiable. 

As Norton Rose Fulbright’s compliance primer on AI in financial services notes, ASIC has reminded financial services businesses that the existing regulatory framework is technology-neutral, meaning it applies equally to AI and non-AI systems.  

Employers are not simply looking for professionals who can use tools. They are looking for professionals who understand the governance obligations that come with them. 

What does advisory capability mean, and how do you build it? 

Advisory capability is the ability to bring compliance insight into business decisions, not just report on them after the fact. It is the difference between a compliance professional who identifies what is not permitted and one who helps the business understand how to achieve its objectives within the regulatory framework. 

The shift from transactional to strategic. 

Morgan McKinley’s 2026 accounting and finance salary data reflects that employers are prioritising commercially minded professionals who can support transformation, manage complexity, and influence decision-making, and automation and AI are accelerating the shift from transactional work to strategic business partnering. 

The two capabilities you need to build alongside technical knowledge. 

For compliance professionals, developing advisory capability comes down to two things: 

• Stakeholder communication, including the ability to distil complex obligations into clear, actionable guidance for non-compliance audiences. 

• Commercial awareness, specifically understanding how the business makes decisions, where regulatory risk intersects with commercial risk, and how to frame compliance input in terms that resonate with senior leaders. 

According to the Robert Half 2026 Australia Financial Services Salary Guide, technical expertise alone is no longer enough to stand out. Employers need professionals who can pair deep functional knowledge with strong interpersonal influence, adaptability, and stakeholder management, and those who do command higher compensation packages and greater internal mobility. 

How do you position yourself to stand out in the current market? 

The candidates attracting the strongest interest right now combine all three capabilities: deep regulatory knowledge, digital tool proficiency, and advisory communication skills. Here is how to actively build toward that profile. 

Practical steps you can take now. 

• Volunteer for regulatory change projects that require collaboration across legal, technology, and operations. 

• Seek roles or internal secondments that involve direct business partnering rather than purely second-line oversight. 

• Develop working knowledge of the compliance monitoring and reporting tools used in your organisation. 

• Ask to contribute to board or executive reporting processes to build comfort communicating risk at a senior level. 

• Follow ASIC’s enforcement updates and APRA’s prudential guidance to stay ahead of where regulatory scrutiny is moving. 

• Build familiarity with at least one adjacent regulatory framework to the one you primarily work in. 

Why acting now matters. 

According to the Future Skills Organisation’s Workforce Plan 2025, Australia faces a projected shortfall of almost 250,000 workers across finance, technology, and business sectors by 2030, with attrition outpacing new supply from education, migration, and job transitions.  

For compliance professionals who invest in the right capabilities now, that structural shortage creates real and sustained opportunity. The professionals who will benefit most are those who have already built cross-functional fluency, digital literacy, and advisory capability before the demand peaks. 

The profile employers are competing for. 

The candidates attracting the strongest interest and the most competitive offers right now are those who combine all three capabilities: 

• They understand the regulatory environment with depth and nuance. 

• They are comfortable working with the tools that modern compliance functions rely on. 

• They can communicate regulatory risk in a way that supports rather than obstructs business decisions. 

If that description does not yet fully reflect where you are, it is a useful guide to where to focus your development. 

Fuse Recruitment works with compliance, risk, and governance professionals across insurance, banking, superannuation, and wealth management, placing candidates with organisations across Australia that are building genuinely capable compliance functions. Whether you are looking for your next role or want to understand how your skills map to current market demand, our financial services recruitment team can provide a confidential conversation grounded in current placement data. 

If you are ready to explore what is available, get in touch with the Fuse team.