Average starting salaries for professional roles have grown by a composite rate of 3.68% in the past three years, according to the Robert Half 2017 Salary Guide.

The salary guide also shows that salaries for professional roles in finance and accounting, financial services, technology and administration are predicted to grow by a further 2.1% in 2017.

“Productivity and growth are today’s premium business mantras and the growing skills shortage is one of the key challenges for any organisation to overcome,” Phil Sheridan, Senior Managing Director of Robert Half UK, UAE and South America, said. “Competition for the best people is intensifying and as this year’s guide demonstrates, salaries for hard to fill roles continue to rise and outpace the average salary by a significant margin.”

Starting salaries for accountancy and finance roles are predicted to rise on average by 2.9% across 100+ positions in SMEs and large businesses. The most difficult areas to recruit for according to UK CFOs are compliance (cited by 21%), accounting (20%) and business and financial analysis (19%) and this is reflected in higher than average predicted salary rises for financial planning and analysis managers (5.8%), group accountants (3.8%) and financial analysts (3.8%).

According to the report, salaries are predicted to continue rising for finance and accounting professionals across the board and businesses are eager to hire candidates with the right cultural fit along with technical expertise and experience. Part-qualified candidates looking to advance their careers with the same company are seeing their starting salary offers increase.