Where the competition for broking staff is hardest
Queensland, with 51.5 direct-employer broking ads per thousand brokers between 23 February and 25 August 2026, ahead of New South Wales at 47.6, Victoria at 31.8, Western Australia at 29.6 and South Australia at 22.4. Queensland holds 15.7% of the country's brokers but posted 20.3% of the 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
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.
The full method, including what this edition deliberately does not report, is in The Index, edition one.
More from The Index, edition one
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