In the six years preceding 2008, demand for tax advisors in Australia dramatically outstripped supply. During that period professional service firms haired heavily and opportunistically, and the market for ‘inbound talent’ predominantly from the UK and India was very strong.

However, as elsewhere in the world, the global financial crash brought a crisis of confidence in the Australian professional services sector. Demand for taxation specialists decreased markedly from September 2008, and most employers of substantial teams of tax professionals (large accounting firms and top-tier law firms) introduced redundancy programmes.

But only a few months on from the most recent of the more heavily publicised redundancies, the days of candidate shortage have returned, albeit in specialist areas such as R&D tax and transfer pricing - and in Perth and Brisbane, rather than in the economically dominant Melbourne and Sydney.

Sectors most severely impacted by the crash have been financial services and property - witness the Sydney market which dominates Australia’s banking and enormous property sectors. Thus Sydney may be some months from health yet.

The more diversified Melbourne market is also showing early positive signs, with many large and mid-tier professional firms wanting “to know who is in the market”.