March 28, 2025
Compliance officers were one of the most in-demand roles in financial services last year, and the role is evolving.
Throughout 2024, our specialist Risk, Compliance & Financial Crime team saw roles like chief compliance officer, compliance manager and other related titles all grow in demand, pushing up salaries and squeezing the jobs market tight. It’s a great time to be a part of the profession, with lots of opportunities available around the country and plenty of room for advancement.
But why is the role of compliance officer in such focus, and should you be doing something different in your career to stay relevant? Let’s take a look.
Why are compliance officers in such demand?
Simply put, pressure and risk are always found together.
We all know the world is getting more complex. Tense geopolitics overseas has created an uncertain economic future for Australia, there is increasing regulatory scrutiny at home placing more pressure on compliance as a business focus, and tight budgets after years of slow growth mean that some risks can’t be taken as lightly as once before.
From an employer’s point of view, especially in the highly regulated financial world, smart compliance officers are pivotal to success in navigating these choppy waters.
Leaders are expecting more from their compliance officers
In response to these pressures, compliance teams are facing significant change.
Business leaders want more value out of their compliance teams. They aren’t content to let these regulatory and ethics experts operate in a silo – siloed business units just aren’t modern. They need proactive business leaders who can step up, collaborate with others and grow from a back-office function to key board room advisor.
The modern compliance officer is no longer simply responsible for ensuring the business operates safely within the boundaries of Australia’s regulatory environment. They must be partners in business growth, helping to build a culture of safety and supporting the long-term strategy of the organisation through the lens of risk.
Common duties of the modern compliance officer
Across our clients, we’ve seen an increase in requests for compliance officers who understand far more than just risk mitigation, fraud and governance standards. Of course, these remain important, but the scope has broadened.
Added duties of the CCO more often than not include:
1. Navigating broader compliance topics
Governance is of course a staple of the role, but its scope is broadening.
There’s a growing call for compliance officers to be well-versed in a range of new topics, including:
- Cyber security
- Tech disruption
- Business ethics/corporate responsibility
- Environmental law
That last one is particularly important, given Australia’s new mandatory climate reporting began this year, adding sustainable finance to the growing checklist of things the compliance team must be across. But any of these subject areas would be valuable extras to a CV.
Additionally, other leaders in the business look to compliance leaders for support understanding what they too need to know, and where they must upskill. This makes it all the more important that compliance officers are well-versed in a broad range of subjects.
2. Adding business value
Modern risk and compliance must play a role in adding long-term business value, aligning to and guiding the overall business strategy.
If the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that business resilience can never be an afterthought. Compliance officers play a leading part in guiding directors to develop fit-for-purpose plans that take into account the range of risks in the modern world (such as environmental hazards, regulatory changes, emerging tech, financial globalisation, public scrutiny, etc.), building more agile businesses as a result.
This means that they must stay ahead of changes themselves, studying to understand the implications of evolving disruption and learning how to make accurate predictions about what may come next.
3. Fostering a culture of compliance
Great company culture requires business leaders to set the tone from the top, and compliance is where that tone starts.
As it stands, things aren’t always perfect in finance. In a Russell Reynolds survey, 50% of financial services employees reported discussing ethical issues and their implications in workgroups, and 30% had witnessed a breach of their firms’ code of conduct, or done the same themselves.
But, right now tolerance for business misconduct is very low in the public sphere, especially where people’s finances are concerned. Compliance leaders are the experts when it comes to ethics, and they must take advantage of their position to help transform the company’s culture – urging proactive reporting of concerns, greater transparency and good ethics training. This is particularly true of company leaders, who will then set an example for everyone else to follow.
So what makes a great compliance officer?
If you’re working your way up the ranks of the compliance team, or you intend to switch to this diverse and challenging profession, these are some of the core skills to get on your CV:
- Business acumen: In order to advise other departments and align to long-term business plans, compliance officers themselves must have sound business acumen. That is, strong knowledge of the business, how it operates and what metrics drive success.
- Strategic thinking: You’ll be helping to drive transformation by guiding others through the complexities of risk and compliance (and pointing them towards opportunities). This requires good strategic thinking skills, and a record of success steering strategic initiatives.
- Cross-team collaboration: Compliance no longer operates in a silo. Good compliance officers are able to work well with others, and they proactively seek out collaboration or build and lead key workgroups.
- Crisis management: If there is a problem, risk management teams are likely to be called upon to help steer the ship back on track. It is your responsibility to help mitigate harm to the business, which will be reflected in your ability to create sound crisis management plans.
- Training others: Compliance, risk, governance … these are complicated topics that others would rather leave to you. But, they (especially leaders) are increasingly involved and are under no less scrutiny by regulators. The better you can train others in complex topics, the less risk the business is likely to face from compliance mistakes.
- Stakeholder management: Managing and communicating with key stakeholders is critical to success – that includes internal stakeholders, but also external parties such as regulators, shareholders and beyond. Each of these groups must know what’s going on and what might come next, and it’s your job to break down the complexity so that it can be understood and actioned. You’ll need to learn to speak the language of the C-suite.
- Continuous improvement: In order to stay on top of trends yourself, you must weave continuous improvement into your daily ways of working. The world is always changing, and your policies, strategies and plans must evolve to suit.
To find your next compliance role, get help from the experts
Here at TalentWeb, our Risk, Compliance & Financial Crime team are specialists in helping high-skilled experts into right-fit roles.
We’ve been operating in the industry for an average of 15 years, and we know what it takes to succeed in the complex world of financial compliance. We speak your language, and we can understand your needs, so let’s chat about your career and how we can help you take that next step.
Learn more about how we help job seekers here, or contact us directly for a chat about your next position.
