7 ASX Stocks Positioned to Win as Financial Services Battle for Talent Reaches Crisis Point

Australian financial services companies are facing their most acute talent shortage in over a decade. A recent study by the Financial Services Council found that 78% of finance firms cited talent acquisition as their primary operational constraint in 2025, up from 43% just three years earlier.

This is not just an HR problem. It is a structural shift reshaping competitive dynamics across banking, fintech, wealth management, and insurance. Companies that can attract and retain skilled professionals in data science, compliance, cybersecurity, and customer experience are pulling ahead. Those that cannot are falling behind, regardless of their balance sheet strength.

For investors, this creates a specific lens through which to evaluate ASX-listed opportunities. We are not just looking at revenue growth and margin expansion anymore. 

We are asking: 

• Can this company actually hire the people it needs to execute its strategy? 

• And if talent scarcity is the binding constraint, which businesses are best positioned to navigate it?

Below, we have identified seven ASX stocks where the ability to win the war for talent is becoming a meaningful driver of valuation and competitive positioning.

1. Macquarie Group (ASX:MQG) – Scale Advantage in a Tight Labour Market

Macquarie has long been Australia’s premier financial services employer for top-tier talent, and that brand advantage is compounding in the current environment. The company added 1,200 net new employees globally in H1 FY26, with particular strength in technology and quantitative roles.

What separates Macquarie from peers is not just compensation. It is career optionality. The firm’s diversified platform means talent can move between asset management, infrastructure investing, commodities trading, and retail banking without leaving the organisation. That internal mobility reduces attrition and makes Macquarie a stickier employer than single-line competitors.

The stock trades at 1.9x book value, which looks expensive on traditional metrics. But in our view, the market is beginning to price in the intangible value of Macquarie’s talent engine. As the labour market tightens further, that gap between Macquarie’s hiring capability and everyone else’s will widen. That is an underappreciated moat.

2. Xero (ASX:XRO) – Engineering Talent Exodus Creates Opening for Cloud Accounting

Xero operates in a market where product velocity matters more than brand heritage. The company that ships features faster wins SME customers, and shipping fast requires keeping engineering teams intact and motivated.

Xero’s employee retention rate sits at 91%, well above the SaaS sector median of 84%. This is partly cultural, but it is also structural. The company offers meaningful equity participation, and its cloud accounting platform is technically interesting work compared to legacy enterprise software. That combination keeps attrition low even as competitors attempt to poach talent.

Revenue grew 21% in H1 FY26 to NZ$939 million, and subscriber growth remained strong at 13%. But what we find more interesting is that Xero’s engineering headcount grew only 8% while output measured by feature releases increased 19%. That is operating leverage driven by stability in the talent base, not just better tooling.

The risk here is valuation. At a forward P/E near 50x, Xero is pricing in a lot of continued execution. But if the company can maintain its talent retention edge while competitors burn through engineering teams, that multiple may be justified.

3. Seek (ASX:SEK) – Direct Beneficiary of Hiring Intensity in Finance

Seek’s ANZ business has seen job advertisement volumes in financial services climb 34% year-on-year, the strongest growth of any sector on the platform. This is not cyclical hiring to backfill attrition. It is structural expansion as finance companies across banking, fintech, and wealth management compete for a limited talent pool.

Seek benefits twice from this dynamic. First, higher ad volumes drive direct revenue growth. Second, the scarcity premium in finance roles pushes advertisers toward Seek’s premium listing products, which carry higher average revenue per listing.

The company reported revenue of A$465 million in H1 FY26, up 11%, with the majority of growth coming from ANZ rather than international markets. EBITDA margins expanded to 41%, suggesting Seek is capturing pricing power as employer desperation for talent intensifies.

One concern is that Seek’s growth in financial services may not be sustainable if interest rates compress hiring budgets. But for now, the sector’s talent needs appear inelastic to cost pressures. Firms are hiring because they cannot execute their strategies without people, not because headcount is cheap.

4. ReadyTech (ASX:RDY) – HR Software for Mid-Tier Finance and Professional Services

ReadyTech is less well-known than Xero or Seek, but it plays a critical infrastructure role in how mid-market organisations manage talent. The company’s HR and payroll software is used by over 7,000 businesses, with particular penetration in financial services, legal, and education.

Revenue in H1 FY26 reached A$77 million, up 18%, with organic growth of 12% excluding acquisitions. What makes ReadyTech interesting is not top-line growth alone. It is the structural lock-in that comes from owning the payroll and HR system of record. Switching costs are high, and once embedded, ReadyTech becomes part of the operational backbone.

As finance companies invest more heavily in talent retention and workforce planning, demand for ReadyTech’s analytics and compliance modules is accelerating. The company noted a 23% increase in cross-sell revenue from existing customers, suggesting clients are deepening their usage as workforce management becomes more strategic.

At a market cap of A$625 million, ReadyTech is too small for many institutional mandates. But for investors comfortable with mid-cap exposure, the stock offers a leveraged play on HR spending intensity without the valuation premium of larger SaaS names.

5. Fintech Platforms Constrained by Talent Scarcity – A Contrarian Opportunity?

Several ASX-listed fintechs are trading at steep discounts to their historical multiples, and in many cases, the valuation compression is directly tied to missed execution milestones. When you dig into the reasons for those misses, talent constraints come up repeatedly.

We see this as a two-sided risk. Companies that cannot solve their hiring problem will continue to underperform. But companies that crack the talent equation could re-rate sharply, because the market is currently pricing in continued underdelivery.

One emerging solution we are tracking is the use of specialised recruiting platforms like SignalHire.com, which allow smaller fintechs to compete for senior hires without the employer brand of a Commonwealth Bank or Macquarie. These tools aggregate contact data for finance professionals and enable direct outreach, bypassing traditional recruitment agencies and their placement fees.

It is too early to say which fintechs will successfully leverage this kind of tooling. But the ones that do will have a meaningful cost and speed advantage in building out their teams. That could be the difference between hitting FY27 growth targets and another year of disappointing guidance.

6. Computershare (ASX:CPU) – Retention as a Competitive Moat in Registry Services

Computershare operates in a business where client relationships are sticky, but talent attrition is a genuine operational risk. The company manages share registries, employee equity plans, and corporate trust services for thousands of listed companies globally. Losing key relationship managers or technical specialists can directly impact client satisfaction and renewal rates.

Employee costs as a percentage of revenue have been creeping up, from 32% in FY23 to 35% in FY25. That is margin pressure, but it is also strategic investment. Computershare is paying up to retain expertise that would be difficult to replace, especially in niche areas like equity plan administration and proxy voting technology.

Revenue in H1 FY26 was A$1.4 billion, up 8%, with management noting that retention of senior client-facing staff was a key driver of organic growth. The market is not yet pricing this in as a sustainable advantage. But in our view, Computershare’s willingness to invest in talent retention while peers attempt to cut labour costs is quietly widening the competitive gap.

7. Technology One (ASX:TNE) – Winning Local Government and Education by Avoiding Offshore Talent Risks

Technology One has built its entire go-to-market strategy around Australian-based development and support teams. While competitors in enterprise software increasingly rely on offshore engineering talent to manage costs, TechOne has kept product and customer success functions onshore.

This is expensive. Technology One’s employee costs are among the highest in the sector as a percentage of revenue. But it is also defensible. Clients in government and education value local expertise, compliance knowledge, and timezone-aligned support. And in a market where talent is scarce, TechOne’s ability to attract developers with the promise of working on public sector projects in Australia rather than being outsourced offshore is a genuine recruiting advantage.

Revenue for H1 FY26 was A$248 million, up 19%, with SaaS annual recurring revenue growing 29%. The company added 48 net new enterprise customers, and churn remained below 1%. We believe Technology One’s onshore talent strategy is a meaningful contributor to that retention performance, even if it does not show up as a line item in the financial statements.

The Investor’s Takeaway

The labour market for financial services talent is not normalising anytime soon. Demographics, skill mismatches, and accelerating digital transformation have created a structural imbalance between supply and demand. That imbalance is now reshaping which companies can execute and which cannot.

For ASX investors, this creates a new filter for evaluating stocks. It is not enough to look at addressable market size or product-market fit anymore. You need to ask whether a company can actually build the team required to deliver on its strategy. The ones that can will compound value. The ones that cannot will disappoint, regardless of how attractive their end markets appear.

In our view, the stocks best positioned are those with either: 

(1) brand strength that makes them talent magnets, like Macquarie

(2) platforms that benefit directly from hiring intensity, like Seek

(3) infrastructure plays that help companies navigate talent scarcity more effectively, like ReadyTech.