Empire group's 2026/27 Salary Guide is here. Built on the responses of over 1,000 professionals across Australia, it delivers a comprehensive and current snapshot of today's employment landscape across legal, corporate services and technology sectors.
This year's guide goes further than salary data alone. Drawing on perspectives from both candidates and employers across Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. It explores workplace culture, flexibility and work-from-home expectations, candidate movement trends, the Right to Disconnect legislation and the continued impact of artificial intelligence on how we work.
Key Findings
A Market Full of Opportunity With 51% of professionals open to a new role and a further 21% receptive to the right opportunity, the talent market is active, purposeful and presenting real possibilities for both candidates and organisations ready to move with intent.
Flexibility Has Become the New Standard 84% of Australian employers now offer flexible working arrangements, reflecting a workforce and workplace culture that has genuinely evolved. Organisations that design flexibility thoughtfully are seeing stronger attraction and retention outcomes as a result.
AI Is Driving Productivity, Not Fear Professionals across all sectors are embracing artificial intelligence as a tool for smarter, faster working. Usage has grown significantly year on year and sentiment has matured, with AI now firmly embedded as a core enabler of productivity and workflow improvement.
Leadership Is the Heart of Great Culture 59% of professionals rank leadership as the single greatest driver of workplace culture, above workload, communication and environment. The message is clear: organisations that invest in developing strong, people-focused leaders are building the kind of cultures that attract great talent and keep them.
To learn more about the current landscape of the legal, corporate services and technology recruitment marketplace, download our salary guide!
Innovative Solutions for Recruitment Success
Recruitment is about connecting great people. For over 16 years, our team of capable industry experts has built extensive networks of job seekers and clients across Australia and internationally. With offices in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, our team intimately understands the recruitment process and can assist you with finding new employees or job opportunities.
Thank you empire group for making the sourcing of a temporary staff member simplistic and easy. The staff member was professional and fitted right into the role. You very much helped our organisation out of a jam.
Tarnya has been an absolute super star in finding us a wonderful candidate to fill a temporary need that has been ongoing for several months now. I can rely on Tarnya to find us high calibre temps that fit in and do a great job. Tarnya is super responsive and makes the whole process easier often finding us support at short notice. I am super happy with the service and our repeated use of Tarnya’s services is testament to the support she provides us.
Worked over the weekend to ensure we had resources ready to go by Monday/Tuesday. Couldn’t fault the service at all.
Tarnya from empire group understood our business needs and presented to us a number of suitable candidates, which removed the stress and time it takes to source a new employee. Tarnya was highly responsive and made the recruiting process seamless. I would definitely use empire group again in the future.
April is more than our recruitment consultant, I would classify her as our recruitment business partner. April has taken the time to get to know our business which means when we are recruiting, April can quickly find the right candidate and manage our expectations and the candidates expectations seemlessly.
Our firm was provided with a great candidate very promptly (in fact, a few different options) and this was very much appreciated.
Professional, commercial and results driven! empire group/legal eagles are without doubt one of the best recruitment agencies we have ever dealt with. Refreshing to work with such a great team of high performance individuals. They are the best in the business.
Leni is a seasoned recruiter who keeps her clients updated every step of the way. It’s hard to find experienced and trusted recruiters in the profession and to be partnering with Leni for our recruitment needs, has been a blessing. Very happy.
I have had the pleasure of dealing with Kim for many years in many firms. Kim is extremely knowledgeable about the industry and always submits candidates that meet our requirements and, more importantly, fit with the culture of the firm. I would thoroughly recommend Kim for any recruiting needs.
Kim is a consummate professional and always willing to go that extra mile, she is personable and knows exactly the type of candidate we are looking for.