The expensive number is the one nobody counts
Between 23 February and 25 August 2026, 36 of the 184 broking and finance businesses we tracked long enough to judge advertised the same role a second time within ninety days. That is 19.6 per cent, or close enough to one in five.
A repeat is not proof of a failed hire. It can be a second seat, a second office, or the same ad relisted under a new link. But a business that is back advertising the same job three months later has spent the fee, the hours and the market's attention twice, and the second run starts from a worse position than the first because the good candidates have already been through it.
The number is also a floor rather than a ceiling. Where a first ad was removed from our records before its repeat appeared, the pair breaks and the business counts as not repeating. Every gap in the data pushes this figure down, never up.
The window in four numbers
- Re-advertised the same role inside 90 days
- 19.6%
- 36 of 184 direct-employer businesses, 23 February to 25 August 2026, FinTalent job-ad database. Denominator restricted to businesses observed for a full 90 days, so a firm first seen last week is not counted as having declined to repeat.
- Live broking ads nationally, at one moment
- 544
- Highest whole-market count returned by the national broker search on Seek during the window, FinTalent job-ad database.
- Median advertised package, mortgage broker
- $110,000
- Midpoint of the advertised band across 130 direct-employer ads, 23 February to 25 August 2026, FinTalent job-ad database. Corroborated by the FinTalent FY26/27 Salary Guide.
- Ads posted by a recruitment agency, not the employer
- 29.4%
- 304 of 1,034 dated ads, FinTalent job-ad database. Agency tagging began in July 2026, so this covers July and August only.
Median advertised package, by role
Direct employers only, with agency and franchise-branded ads excluded because neither tells you what the hiring business decided to pay. Only role families with at least thirty advertised salaries are shown; below that a single ad moves the median several thousand dollars.
Midpoint of the advertised band, 23 February to 25 August 2026, FinTalent job-ad database. Every one of the three sits inside the corresponding band in the FinTalent FY26/27 Salary Guide, which is built from placements rather than from ads.
Ads per thousand brokers, by state
Advertised demand set against the size of the broker population in each state. A ratio rather than a count, because it answers the question a principal actually has, which is whether the competition for people is worse where they are than somewhere else.
Direct-employer ads carrying a state, 23 February to 25 August 2026, FinTalent job-ad database, against the MFAA Find a Broker directory of 15,618 state-identified brokers, scraped 4 July 2026. The ACT, Tasmania and the Northern Territory are left out: between them they carry 17 ads, which is too few to rank.
Supply and demand, state by state
| State | MFAA brokers | Share of brokers | Ads | Share of ads | Ads per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | 5,521 | 35.4% | 263 | 42.3% | 47.6 |
| Victoria | 4,333 | 27.7% | 138 | 22.2% | 31.8 |
| Queensland | 2,445 | 15.7% | 126 | 20.3% | 51.5 |
| Western Australia | 1,758 | 11.3% | 52 | 8.4% | 29.6 |
| South Australia | 1,159 | 7.4% | 26 | 4.2% | 22.4 |
| Aust. Capital Territory | 209 | 1.3% | 11 | 1.8% | 52.6 |
| Tasmania | 138 | 0.9% | 3 | 0.5% | 21.7 |
| Northern Territory | 55 | 0.4% | 3 | 0.5% | 54.5 |
MFAA Find a Broker directory scraped 4 July 2026, 15,618 brokers carrying a state. Ads are direct-employer ads carrying a state, 622 of them, 23 February to 25 August 2026, FinTalent job-ad database. The last three rows are shown for completeness and should not be read as a ranking: the Northern Territory's 54.5 rests on three ads against 55 brokers.
How this was counted, and what it will not tell you
The ads come from a standing national search of Seek for Australian broking and finance roles, running since February 2026 and captured daily. 1,038 ads are held for the window, 58.5 per cent of them caught on the day they were posted. Titles are free text, 516 distinct spellings across those ads, so every role figure is grouped into families by a published rule set before it is counted. Recruitment agency and franchise-branded ads are separated out and excluded from anything attributed to an employer, because neither tells you what the hiring business decided.
Three things this edition deliberately does not report, because the data cannot carry them. There is no count of how many roles were advertised in total, and no comparison against a previous quarter: the capture widened sharply in July 2026, and volume that rises across every role and every state in the same month is a change in what we are seeing rather than a change in the market. There is no time on market, because no surviving field records when an ad came down. There is no movement in advertised salary, for the same reason the volume comparison is missing.
Advertised salary is what an employer said it would pay, not what anyone was paid. Roughly two ads in five name no figure at all, and an ad that withholds the number is not a random ad, so read the medians as the disclosed end of the market. Broker packages are frequently quoted on target including commission, so the $110,000 is not a base salary.
Count your own repeats before you judge the number
Go back three years and count the seats you have advertised more than once inside ninety days. If you land near one in five you are running at the market rate, which is not the same as running well. If a seat keeps coming back, the ad is not the problem and neither is the market: something in the brief, the assessment or the first ninety days is not holding.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure in this document is re-derivable from a saved query. Ask and the working goes out with it.
- FinTalent job-ad database. 1,038 Australian broking and finance advertisements posted between 23 February and 25 August 2026, captured daily from a standing national search and held with title, employer, location, dates and advertised salary.
- MFAA Find a Broker directory. 15,626 Australian mortgage and finance brokers, scraped 4 July 2026, of whom 15,618 carry a state. Used as the supply-side map behind every ratio in this edition.
- FinTalent FY26/27 Salary Guide. FinTalent's own benchmark, built from placements rather than from advertisements. Used here only as an independent check on the advertised medians, which it agrees with on all three published role families.
The next edition covers the following window
No form, no sign-up and no gate. Ask and it gets sent.
If you want the figures for your own postcode rather than your state, that can be run. It is the same dataset, cut to the businesses advertising near you.
