Accounting & Finance Market Update - July 2026

Back in March, I wrote that the senior finance market was competitive but not broken. Four months on, that assessment still holds. What has changed is how the market is sorting winners from everyone else.

The headline numbers tell a stable story. Unemployment eased to 4.4% in May, down from a four-year high of 4.5% in April, and employment growth has been solid. On paper, that looks like a healthy market.

But paper numbers were never the real story for senior finance professionals, and they matter even less now.

The story this quarter is the widening gap between two job searches. There is the public one, where hundreds of applicants chase a handful of advertised roles. And there is the one most people never see, where roles get filled before a job ad is ever written.

Let me walk you through what is actually happening, what the data shows, and what it means if you are hiring or looking for your next move.

The labour market in brief

Employment conditions have been choppy but resilient. After unemployment spiked to 4.5% in April, the highest level in more than four years, it eased back to 4.4% in May, with employment rising by over 40,000 people in the strongest monthly gain since December.

That volatility matters more than the headline rate. It tells us businesses are still hiring, but with more caution and less certainty than this time last year. For senior finance roles specifically, that caution shows up as longer processes, more stakeholders involved in the final decision, and a sharper focus on candidates who can prove commercial impact rather than just technical competence.

The part of the market you cannot see

This is the conversation I keep having with senior finance professionals right now.

"I am applying to roles that match my background perfectly and hearing nothing back."

This is not new, but it is more pronounced than it was in March. The reason is structural, not personal.

Industry data consistently shows that a significant majority of professional and executive roles are filled without ever being advertised publicly. At senior levels, including CFO, Finance Director, and Group Financial Controller, that figure is higher still. Boards and hiring committees often run confidential searches before a role is ever posted, working through retained recruiters, peer referrals, and direct outreach to people they already trust.

Think about what that means in practice. For every senior finance opening in the market right now, a meaningful share will be filled through someone's network, a recruiter's relationship database, or a direct conversation, well before a job board ever sees it.

This is why two equally qualified candidates can have completely different experiences. One spends months submitting applications into job boards and wonders what is wrong with their resume. The other has a single conversation with the right person and is shortlisted for a role that was never advertised.

Nothing is wrong with the first candidate's resume. They are simply playing in the visible 20% of the market while the real opportunity sits in the other 80%.

Why this matters more now than it did in March

A few things have shifted since the start of the year that make direct access more important, not less.

• AI assisted applications have made the visible job market noisier. More candidates are submitting more applications, faster, with AI generated resumes and cover letters. Hiring managers are not seeing better matches, they are seeing more volume with the same hit rate.
• Hiring committees are taking longer to decide. With more economic uncertainty in the air, businesses are adding extra sign off steps before they commit to a senior hire. That favours candidates who are already known and trusted over those starting cold from an application.
• AI fluency has become a genuine screening criterion. Research into finance job listings shows that around a third now explicitly reference AI or automation skills, up from roughly a quarter the year before. CFO roles in particular are increasingly described around the ability to use AI for forecasting, insight, and decision speed, not just technical reporting.
• Internal capability gaps are reshaping what businesses want. Finance leaders globally continue to flag a shortage of people who combine technical depth with the judgement to apply AI and automation in a commercial context. That gap is being filled through targeted searches, not open postings.

Put simply, the market has not slowed down. It has gone quieter. The activity has moved from job boards into networks, recruiter relationships, and direct conversations.

What this means if you are looking for your next role

If your entire strategy is built around applying for advertised vacancies, you are competing for a shrinking, increasingly crowded slice of the market.

The professionals landing strong roles right now share a few habits.

• They treat their professional network as an asset to maintain, not a resource to activate only when they need a job.
• They build genuine visibility, through LinkedIn, industry conversations, and relationships with specialist recruiters, well before they start looking.
• They are clear and specific about the value they bring and the problems they solve, rather than relying on a generic resume to do that work for them.
• They engage directly with recruiters who specialise in their space and who already have relationships with the businesses likely to be hiring.
• They understand that referrals and warm introductions consistently outperform cold applications, both in speed and in the strength of the match.

None of this is about working harder. It is about putting your effort where the actual opportunities are, rather than where they are easiest to see.

What this means if you are hiring

For businesses hiring senior finance talent, the same dynamic cuts both ways.

If your search strategy starts and ends with a job ad, you are only reaching the candidates who happen to be actively looking and scrolling job boards on the right day. The strongest candidates, the ones already excelling in their current role, are rarely browsing job ads. They are reachable, but only through a direct approach.

Businesses getting this right are doing a few things consistently.

• Running confidential, targeted searches for sensitive or senior appointments rather than advertising and hoping the right person applies.
• Moving quickly once they find a strong candidate. In a market where the best people are not desperate, a slow process is the easiest way to lose them to someone faster.
• Being upfront about what the AI and technology expectations of the role actually are, since this has become a genuine point of comparison for senior candidates assessing opportunities.
• Partnering with recruiters who have existing relationships in the market, rather than starting a search from a blank database every time a role opens up.
• Investing in succession and pipeline conversations now, so that when a senior role does open up, the search starts from a warm network instead of a cold one.

The businesses that treat senior hiring as a relationship business, not a transaction, are the ones consistently landing the candidates everyone else never gets in front of.

The outlook through to the end of 2026

The honest read remains close to where it was in March, with a sharper edge to it now.

• The labour market is volatile month to month but structurally stable, with no signs of a serious downturn.
• AI capability has moved from a nice to have to a genuine differentiator in senior finance hiring criteria.
• Confidential, network driven searches are becoming a larger share of how senior roles get filled, not a smaller one.
• Queensland and Brisbane continue to see solid activity in finance, energy, and infrastructure, while Sydney remains the centre of gravity for financial services and PE backed finance roles.
• Businesses that were cautious through 2025 are starting to invest again in senior finance leadership, but they are doing it selectively and through trusted channels.

The roles being filled right now are not always the ones you can see.

That is not a reason to give up on a structured search. It is a reason to change where you focus your energy. The candidates winning in this market are not applying more. They are connecting more, and connecting with the right people.

The businesses hiring best are not posting more job ads. They are building stronger relationships with the people who already know where the talent is.

If your search, on either side of the table, still lives entirely on job boards, you are only seeing part of the market. The other part is built on conversations, not applications.

HPR Consulting - Your Partner in Senior Finance Recruitment

With more than two decades of experience placing senior finance professionals across Australia, HPR Consulting partners with businesses and finance leaders to navigate complex hiring decisions.