National Workforce Strategy links:
The National Workforce Strategy 2026-2030 for financial counsellors and financial capability workers was released in December 2025. It recognises that our workforce is our greatest asset.
The Strategy sets a shared direction for building a bigger, stronger, more impactful workforce across Australia.
It brings together Financial Counselling Australia, the state and territory peaks and professional associations, agencies, Registered Training Organisations, HumanAbility (the Skills and Jobs Council), funders, and the many partners who keep this sector moving.
The Strategy aims to ensure our workforce is:
- adequately sized and diverse, and ready to meet demand.
- happy and resilient.
- capable and enabled – with the skills, tools and support to excel and thrive
The Strategy is grounded in what the sector told us it needs. Nearly 1,000 financial counsellors, financial capability workers and agency managers shared their views through the workforce survey. Almost 100 forums were held to develop a deep understanding of issues and test ideas.
Ten key priorities form the backbone of the Strategy.
- Address the labour market imbalance
- Foster and develop new sector entrants
- Build a disaster-ready workforce
- Be vigilant about workforce wellbeing
- Strengthen skills, quality and professionalism
- Innovate and cut admin
- Consistent support for frontline workers, no matter where they are based
- Strong capability to support diverse and marginalised groups
- Build on First Nations workforce successes
- Strong interface between financial counselling and capability work
The Strategy is both big picture and practical. It outlines where want to be by 2023 and how to get there. Delivery will be staged through shorter Action Plans. The first Action Plan 2026-27 focuses on establishing strong foundations and building early momentum. It contains tangible initiatives that we can start delivering on immediately.
Background research for the Strategy
The Towards a National Workforce Strategy series developed by Policy Fox Consulting were published in mid-2025 to inform development of the Strategy. Read the reports here.
- Report on survey results and consultations here.
- Short summary of national survey results here.
- Analysis: the report on key findings and issues.