The Compliance Index, conducted by TAS, found that more than 60 per cent of executives surveyed are seeking to employ as many as five additional resources to focus purely on risk and compliance management in the year ahead, an increase close to 20 per cent on the year before.

Research conducted by Seek found the number of job advertisements for risk and compliance specialists have jumped by nearly 50 per cent over the past year.

The index also confirms that compliance is higher on the boardroom agenda, with close to three quarters of surveyed executives reporting increased visibility of compliance across the organization, up by almost 20 per cent compared to 18 months ago.

The index suggested there are still many challenges organisations face, with the top three being: resource constraints at 42 per cent, time at 35 per cent and capability at 23 per cent.

Yet, against these findings, TAS said companies appear to be slow on the uptake of technology partnerships to help overcome compliance challenges.

The survey found less than a quarter of organisations actively teaming up with regtechs at 23 per cent, 3 per cent actively pursuing collaborations with regtechs and a third considering doing it (32 per cent).

“It is no surprise that, given what the sector has been through recently, there is nervousness around implementing relatively new and untested technology, which may be impacting organisations’ decisions to partner with regtechs,” said Shane Baker, CEO, TAS.

“However, as the demand for skilled experts continues to grow and vacancies remain unfilled, organisations will need to look at alternative resources to meet their regulatory and compliance requirements including innovative partnerships with third parties like regtechs.”

Currently 13.5 per cent of all banking and finance roles on Seek are in the areas of risk and compliance.

“According to the report, Australian executives are taking a top-down approach to creating positive change in their organisations towards compliance,” Mr Baker concluded.

“Leaders are taking the right steps to ensure greater transparency moving forward with increased commitment to specialist resources as well as the prioritisation of compliance at a board level.

“This shows executive ownership at the most senior level to meeting regulatory requirements, which is critical when creating a company-wide, robust and effective compliance culture.”