1,200 new brokers entered in FY25. Where did they come from?

Close to 1,200 new-to-industry brokers joined the mortgage broking industry in FY25, and the total broker population hit a record 22,000. Most came from banking, pushed out by a wave of bank job cuts at exactly the moment borrowers were flooding toward brokers. If you are hiring or considering the switch, where that growth comes from matters far more than the headline number.

The bottom line: Broking is growing fast, but a record intake of new entrants means a more varied, less experienced candidate pool. FinTalent reads the composition behind the growth, who is actually arriving and from where, so principals hire for the right transferable skills and candidates go in with their eyes open.

The mortgage broking industry added close to 1,200 new-to-industry brokers to MFAA membership in FY25. That is 9% more than the year before. The FBAA tells a similar story, welcoming 2,381 new members over the same period, with nearly half new to the sector entirely.

The total broker population now sits north of 22,000 as of September 2025. That is a 12% year-on-year increase and the highest number ever recorded. Since 2017 the industry has grown 29%, and brokers now write more than 77% of all new home loans in Australia.

Growth is the headline. But if you are hiring or considering a career change, the composition of that growth matters more than the number itself. The industry bodies do not publish background breakdowns. There is no neat pie chart showing how many came from banking, real estate or financial planning. That data simply is not captured at an industry level. What we do know is that the push factors have never been stronger.

What is driving the banking exodus?

Australian banks eliminated nearly 8,000 jobs in 2025, the highest annual total since records began. ANZ alone flagged 3,500 redundancies. NAB cut more than 400 positions. Westpac announced plans to cull 1,500 roles. CBA has been quietly offshoring technology and retail banking jobs to India while posting record profits.

These are not back-office cuts buried in annual reports. These are lending staff, mortgage specialists, branch managers and relationship bankers. The exact profiles that historically fed the broker pipeline. The banks are pushing experienced lending professionals out the door at the same time consumers are flooding toward brokers. The timing is not coincidental. It is structural.

For candidates weighing the move, this context matters. You are not entering a niche industry anymore, you are joining a channel that dominates the market. But you are also joining alongside a wave of new entrants, many competing for the same clients, the same aggregator spots and the same mentorship bandwidth. If you are coming from a branch or a call centre, our take on banking versus broking lays out the trade-offs honestly.

What does this mean if you are hiring?

The candidate pool has changed. Five years ago you might have had your pick of experienced bankers with established networks. Today you are more likely to see candidates with varied backgrounds, shorter tenure in financial services, or no lending experience at all. The Cert IV is the only barrier to entry, and it can be completed in weeks.

That is not necessarily bad. Some of the best brokers we see came from outside traditional lending. A strong real estate background can bring an existing referral network. Insurance professionals often have the compliance mindset and client management skills that translate well. Even candidates from completely unrelated fields succeed if they have the right mix of hustle and coachability. This is exactly why hiring for attitude over experience matters more now than it used to.

But it does change the hiring calculus. You are not just assessing technical skills anymore. You are assessing adaptability, business development instinct, and whether someone can survive the ramp-up period without hurting the business too much. The mentorship question is real. The FBAA recently launched a New Broker Scholarship program specifically for brokers in their first two years, acknowledging that this is when most failures occur. Research suggests one in three new small businesses in Australia fail in their first year, and broking is no different.

When you hire a new-to-industry broker you are not just filling a seat. You are committing to a development timeline. The aggregator will provide systems and compliance support, but the day-to-day guidance, the pipeline management and the reality checks when the first few months are slower than expected, that falls on you. And here is the number that should give everyone pause: 15% of the current broker population settled zero loans in the six months to September 2024. That is 2,610 brokers who are technically in the industry but not writing business.

What does this mean if you are a candidate?

If you are a candidate, the question is not whether broking is a good career. The market has answered that. The question is whether you are prepared for what it actually takes to build a book from scratch, often without the institutional support you had in banking.

The flexibility is real. The income potential is real. But so is the reality that you are essentially starting a small business. The first six to twelve months can be brutal. You are learning lender policies, building referral relationships, and trying to generate enough activity to survive the clawback period if a client refinances early.

The bankers I speak with often underestimate this transition. They are used to having leads handed to them, systems that work, and a salary that arrives regardless of how many loans they settle that month. Broking does not work that way. Your income is directly tied to your output, and your output in year one is almost always lower than you expect. If you want a realistic picture of the upside on the other side of that ramp, the broker earnings calculator is a more honest starting point than most job ads.

Who actually makes it?

The 1,200 new brokers who joined this year will look very different in two years. Some will be writing $15 million a year. Some will have quietly let their accreditations lapse.

The data tells us the industry is growing. It does not tell us who will make it. That is the bit worth paying attention to, and it is the bit FinTalent spends its time on.