A new Australian report reveals legal roles in companies are posting the fastest income growth in 2018. The analysis showed that current wages for in-house lawyers is $170,000, with the potential wage by the end of 2018 set as approximately $187,000, depending on level of expertise and seniority. Research by global recruitment consultancy Robert Walters has pinpointed five specialist roles across the Australian economy as having had the strongest wage growth for 2018 thus far.

In-house in top five

According to the results, in-house lawyers in New South Wales is among the top five, behind Microsoft developers in Western Australia, project developers in Queensland and HR organisational development managers in Victoria. The other role in the top five is senior IT consultant in South Australia, who have experienced the same wage growth in 2018 as in-house lawyers, according to the analysis. Discussing the legal profession, Andrew Hanson, Robert Walters managing director explained in-house corporate lawyers in Sydney with 10 years in financial services have potential to see wage growth increase by 10 per cent by the end of the year. However, he also suggested that the rest of the legal profession isn’t far behind.

Escalating regulation requirements

‘The reason for the huge growth in wage is simply about supply and demand. There just isn’t enough people employed in these roles, and looking down the pipeline the trend is expected to continue well into next year,’ Mr Hanson said. He explained ‘Infrastructure budgets both federally and on state-level are at record levels, the banking royal commission has no end in sight, meaning banks and financial service companies are locking down their risk practices, while investment in government IT and data storage regulation and requirements continues to escalate.’