“Faced with a highly competitive, candidate-driven market, top candidates within finance and accounting who possess much sought-after, nice and hard-to-find skills and regularly receive several job offers, are in a strong position to negotiate salary,” said David Jones, senior managing director for Robert Half Asia Pacific.

“Companies thus increasingly understand that competitive remuneration packages are essential in order to land the necessary talent.”

Mr Jones also revealed the five “golden finance positions” that can expect the highest salary increases in 2016:

• financial accountant;
• management accountant;
• finance manager;
• senior financial analyst; and
• business analyst.

According to Robert Half, the continuous demand for accounting and finance professionals is driven by market changes; factors relating to the ongoing global convergence of accounting standards; increases in reporting responsibilities; and the ongoing digitisation of financial information, particularly due to the presence of big data.

“Big data has changed everything about the way business is done, and has also had an effect on the finance function. Skilled business analysts are highly in demand as there is an increasing need to develop and monitor data quality metrics and ensure business data and reporting needs are met,” he said.

"With 89 per cent of Australian CFOs saying it’s challenging to find qualified finance professionals, those in possession of the much sought-after and niche skills are ahead of the competition to secure the best salary offers." 

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