Financial analyst salary in Australia

Most financial analysts at funded Australian startups earn A$90k to A$137k in 2026, and strong analysts on the searches I run land at A$110k to A$150k plus super. The spread is almost entirely about whether the analyst produces the numbers or changes what happens because of them, and the second is scarcer.

The 2026 range

A dedicated financial analyst sits at A$110k to A$150k plus super, moving up as the role takes on more ownership of the forecast. Tech project accountants, who often work close to FP&A, are priced on the FP&A salary page.

For context on either side: an accountant sits at A$95k to A$120k plus super, and a finance manager at A$140k to A$170k plus super. Every figure here excludes superannuation: the Super Guarantee is 12% of ordinary time earnings from 1 July 2025. The analyst band overlaps both, which is why the title alone tells you very little about what you are buying.

There is also an entry step at the bottom of that band worth knowing. For a straight financial reporting role, candidates can generally expect A$110-115k plus, especially where they can add immediate value, while an attractive FP&A role might start around A$105k, with the appeal of the work trading against the cash.

What funded startups advertise and report

Our startup finance salary data holds 20 financial analyst figures from 11 funded Australian startups, with a median of A$121k and half between A$90k and A$137k. In Sydney the median is A$125k across 18 figures^[1].

The spread shows the same split as the band. The top is specialist and senior analyst work, such as Canva's cloud hosting finance analyst at up to A$215k and Harrison.ai's senior financial analysts at A$150k to A$210k. The bottom is junior analyst pay, from about A$70k.

What a financial analyst does

The classic definition is a financial data specialist: detailed analysis of financial data including budgets and forecasting, preparing the FP&A reports that senior finance then adds commentary and recommendations to. That division works in a large function where there is someone senior to hand the analysis to.

In a startup there is nobody to hand it to. The analyst is the last person to touch the number before it reaches a founder or a board, so the interpretation has to come with it. That is why the same title costs more here than it does inside a large function: you are hiring the commentary layer as well as the analysis.

The commercial analyst is a different animal

A commercial finance analyst acts as the conduit between finance and business operations, using financial data to identify opportunities for cost saving or revenue growth. The value is in being embedded in tenders, supporting bids, and giving the business information it can act on, rather than pumping out reports or building spreadsheets nobody reads.

Finance shows its commercial edge through analysts who can sit across engineering, sales and operations, then ask the right questions and pull together insights those teams could not assemble themselves. If that is the job, say so in the brief, price at the top of the band, and interview for the questions they ask rather than the models they have built.

Why this level is worth getting right

The scarce capability across Australian finance is not technical. In our Q1 2026 market report, 60% of finance professionals identified strategic and commercial thinking as the most significant skill gap, outweighing technical accounting, data analytics and technology literacy combined. At analyst level that gap is the whole difference between a useful hire and an expensive report generator.

It also matters more as tooling improves. Finance teams are getting leaner while expectations grow: if AI can generate reports, flag variances and draft commentary, leaders will choose smaller teams with stronger commercial influence. The analyst whose value was production is the one most exposed to that shift.

If the role is really owning the forecast and the planning cycle rather than the analysis, that is FP&A, and I set out that band separately.

When to hire one at all

An analyst is rarely the right first finance hire. If the close is not reliable and the data is not clean, an analyst spends their first months building the foundation rather than analysing anything, which is a controller's job at a controller's rate. Get the reporting working, then add the analysis on top of numbers you trust.

If the reporting foundation does not exist yet, the first hire is usually a controller.

For the career path from analyst into FP&A, see the FP&A analyst guide.

Common questions

These guides set out how we see it, drawn from the searches we run and the finance leaders we work with. They are general information about the market, not financial, accounting or legal advice, and they are no substitute for advice on your own circumstances.