Financial Planner
Financial Planners help individuals and families make decisions about money, investments, insurance, and retirement. The work is regulated and requires formal qualifications plus a national exam.
What this job is
A Financial Planner assesses a client's financial situation and prepares written advice on topics such as superannuation, investment portfolios, insurance cover, estate planning, and debt management. The role sits inside a regulated framework overseen by ASIC, which means advice must meet strict legal and ethical standards. Planners may work inside a bank, an accounting firm, a dedicated financial planning practice, or as a self-employed adviser with their own Australian Financial Services licence.
Are employers advertising this role?
Falling, down 20.8% over 5 years
Counted across a group of similar roles. These are three-month rolling averages of online job advertisements, not filled positions.
Source: Jobs and Skills Australia, Internet Vacancy Index.
Day-to-day
A typical day involves meeting clients to gather information about their income, assets, debts, and goals. The planner then analyses that information and prepares a Statement of Advice, a formal document that sets out recommendations and the reasoning behind them. There is ongoing client contact to review plans as circumstances change. Administrative work is significant: compliance documentation, record-keeping, and staying current with regulatory updates from ASIC and the Australian Taxation Office take up a meaningful share of each week.
Who does this now
About 23,800 people worked in this occupation across Australia at the 2021 Census.
Is it steady
A regulated advice role. AI often handles the modelling. Trust-based client relationships tend to stay human-led.
What this role asks for
Bachelor degree or higher (ABS skill level 1)
Registration or licensing is required.
Can employers fill these jobs
Employers hiring for this occupation were generally able to find suitable applicants in 2025. This measures how hard employers found it to fill jobs. It is not a count of jobs, and it does not say whether the occupation is growing.
Requirements
Entry into this occupation requires a bachelor degree in a relevant field such as financial planning, commerce, or business, followed by passing the national financial adviser exam, which ASIC has run since the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) was wound up. New entrants also complete a professional year of supervised practice before they can provide advice independently. Relevant courses may be searchable at yourcareer.gov.au. Information on subsidised training options is available at dewr.gov.au/skills-reform/free-tafe.
The honest hard part
The regulatory environment for financial planning has tightened considerably since the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. Ongoing education requirements, compliance obligations, and professional indemnity insurance costs are real burdens, particularly for those running small practices. Career changers coming from outside financial services may find the combination of a bachelor degree, the national exam, and a supervised professional year a longer runway than they expect. The client-facing side of the role also demands patience and the ability to explain complex concepts clearly to people who may be anxious about money.
Where the jobs are
In practice, roles tend to concentrate in capital cities where financial services firms and high-net-worth client bases are largest, though regional practices do exist.
Pay
Published for ANZSCO unit group 2223, the wider group this job sits in, not for this job on its own.
This is the median for full-time employees who are not managers and are paid at the adult rate, before tax and salary sacrifice. It is a guide to what the work pays, not a wage rate.
Source: ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.
Skills
- Active Listeningcore
- Advise on financial matterscore
- Advise on investmentcore
- Analyse financial riskcore
- Attention to Detailcore
- Confidentiality and Privacy Compliancecore
- Create a financial plancore
- Create a financial reportcore
- Customer Needs Assessmentcore
- Empathy and Emotional Intelligencecore
- Ensure compliance with legal requirementscore
- Financial productscore
- Goal Setting and Planningcore
- Investment analysiscore
- Manage financial riskcore
- Negotiationcore
- Obtain financial informationcore
- Offer financial servicescore
- Policy Interpretationcore
- Regulatory and Legislative Awarenesscore
- Report Writingcore
- Research and Analysiscore
- Review investment portfolioscore
- Risk Identificationcore
- Verbal Communicationcore
- Written Communicationcore
- Analyse financial performance of a company
- Analyse market financial trends
- Complaint Handling
- Continuous Learning and Upskilling
- CRM System Operation
- Financial markets
- Microsoft Excel Data Management
- Onboarding New Clients
- Problem Solving
- Record Management
- Securities
- Stakeholder Communication
- Workload Self-Management
Which of these do you have?
Tick the ones you haveCommon questions
Sources
- ABS OSCA 2024, occupation definition and task statements
- ABS Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours, May 2025, customised report.
- ABS, 2021 Census of Population and Housing based on usual place of residence (Custom Report). OSCA Experimental Estimates.
Role data is drawn from official Australian Government sources, and each figure names where it comes from. Where a role is not in the ABS classification, the page shows no government figures for it. Data may not reflect every local variation.
What Financial Planner workers move into, from ten years of tax records.
Last updated: 10 October 2026
Want a hand with what comes next? The 12-week Sprint covers your resume, LinkedIn and interview practice, with up to three coach reviews of a targeted resume or an application from an Australian career coach, for A$299 paid once. Before you decide anything, you can read who we are or send us a question.