The UK finance sector is growing, thanks to a gradually recovering economy, the growing impact of FinTech, and a resurgence in accountancy demands. Unfortunately, while this market represents numerous opportunities for candidates, it also means employers are facing a serious skills shortage.
In 2024, 83% of financial leaders reported experiencing a serious talent shortage, and the problem isn’t going away. Many business leaders assume talent gaps lead to higher recruitment costs, but the repercussions are far more severe.
When finance roles are left unfilled, the impact ripples across the entire business, causing digital transformation projects to stall, overburdened teams, missed growth opportunities, and strategic blind spots. Here’s what you really need to know about the true cost of talent gaps, and why it’s so important to find a fast, efficient, and effective way to build your team.
The Cost of the Talent Gap: Quantifiable Financial Impacts
Leaving a finance role unfilled doesn’t just put extra pressure on your other employees – it drains your budget and your potential for growth. Direct productivity losses are often the most significant and most visible cost upfront. When you don’t have the talent you need, critical tasks can build up or be spread thin across busy employees who don’t have time to handle them.
Month-end reporting delays, audit requests, and budget updates stack up, causing frustration and holding back crucial business decisions. Without a budget report, for instance, you might not know how much you can invest in new technology in the next quarter, or where to focus your efforts.
Since many financial tasks are critical to a company’s operations, it’s common for employers to look towards “stopgap” solutions. Overtime quickly becomes the norm, driving up payroll costs while risking burnout. Contractors and interim professionals may bridge the gap, but their premium rates can outpace full-time salaries, too.
Some companies even make the mistake of hiring the wrong employees, wasting money on onboarding and training, only to have to replace the staff member within a few months.
Then there’s the cost of “missed opportunities” to consider. The value of what your business could be doing – but isn’t. Maybe a system upgrade gets delayed, because no one can lead the project, or you miss out on a merger opportunity because you can’t effectively assess the deal.
Missed opportunities cause your company to stagnate, while other organisations rapidly gain ground, drawing away your clients and revenue.
The Impact of Talent Gaps on Teams
Just because you don’t have someone to fill a crucial finance role doesn’t mean the workload disappears. Usually, the tasks fall on the shoulders of existing team members. That doesn’t just increase costs; it creates a serious risk of burnout.
Even if your teams can manage the extra work for a while, the exhaustion and pressure can quickly add up, leading to more mistakes. Reporting, forecasting and compliance errors cause inefficiencies and expose your company to major regulatory risks.
Beyond weighing teams down with extra work, unfilled roles often impact employee morale. The employees “left behind” could end up feeling undervalued, overworked, or frustrated by a lack of support. They might become disengaged or demotivated because they can’t achieve their personal goals without the support of finance colleagues.
Over time, this leads to turnover, while also prompting shifts in company culture. Collaborative, proactive teams become siloed, reactive, and exhausted.
Knowledge gaps are another major problem, particularly when finance professionals leave your team and there’s no succession plan in place. Lost employees could have had valuable information on systems, reporting cycles, and market dynamics that aren’t easy to replace. That means you end up making strategic moves without the right input.
Many companies end up greenlighting investments without analysing risks or missing early warning signs of new challenges, just because they lack the knowledge.
The Long-Term Impact of Talent Gaps
The immediate impact of talent gaps in your finance team can be serious, but the long-term consequences are often far more damaging. While you’re battling to recruit new talent, that gap is gradually chipping away at your company’s ability to grow.
Without financial guidance, most companies will struggle to scale. They can’t budget for expansion, experiment with different scenarios, secure funding, and assess risks. That means you’re left sitting still while other companies move forward, which could mean investors and supporters lose faith in your value.
A lack of access to finance talent can also lead to delays in digital transformation. While your finance teams might not be responsible for deploying new AI tools or automation, they do make sure you have the budget required to invest in new solutions. Plus, if other employees pick up the slack, they won’t have the time or focus to learn how to use new tools effectively.
The result is often increased technical debt, reduced agility, and a growing gap between your company and more tech-savvy competitors.
Then there’s the long-term impact on leadership development and succession planning to consider. Mid-level finance roles are often launchpads to leadership positions. Your leadership pipeline dwindles when those roles are unfilled or patched with stop-gap support. Institutional knowledge gets lost, mentorship programs flounder, and team members lose direction.
Calculating the True Cost of Talent Gaps
Understanding that finance talent gaps are expensive is one thing. Quantifying those costs is something else entirely. Sometimes, a clear view of how much you’re really losing to the “gap” is crucial to moving in the right direction.
To calculate your cost, start by identifying the vacant role, the unfulfilled or redistributed core responsibilities, and the downstream effects on productivity, compliance, revenue, and morale.
You might pay attention to missed deadlines, overtime logged, project delays, investor spend lost, or contractor costs. Then, calculate the cost of the gap by adding all of those varying elements together.
For instance, if the lack of a finance manager delays budget approvals by two weeks, costing £20K in missed opportunities, and interim support costs £5K, your short-term cost is already £25K – and that’s before factoring in burnout, retention risks, or compliance exposure.
Industry benchmarks can give you some helpful context to work with. For instance, the CIPD suggests the average cost of filling a vacancy is around £6,125, but that rises to £19,000 for a managerial role. Still, that doesn’t account for the cost of productivity losses, strategic growth stagnation, and other factors, so try to take a holistic approach.
Be honest with your calculations, and use them to determine where you need to focus your attention—and fast.
Closing the Gap: Turning Awareness into Action
Talent gaps in finance aren’t just a recruitment problem; they’re a real vulnerability for businesses, damaging growth, opportunities, and productivity. From measurable financial losses, to strained teams and slower transformation efforts, the true cost of a talent gap can go deeper than you’d think. So, what can you do now?
Be proactive. Assess the real financial impact of your current vacancies, and prioritise the roles you need to fill as soon as possible. Don’t just sit back and assume the problem will fix itself. Jump in early and take proactive steps.
Work with a financial recruitment company to attract talent with eye-catching offers and benefits – before the expense grows. Invest in upskilling strategies and build a long-term talent pipeline as soon as possible.
Thanks
Rachel
About Rebus Financial Recruitment
Rebus Financial Recruitment provides a specialist and focused recruitment service to its customers, ranging from various organisations, including SMES, to large PLCS.
We strive to offer both the client and candidate a seamless recruitment experience. Using our expertise, we understand employer and employee needs and match them perfectly.
To learn more, contact one of our team members today or call us at 01282 930930.
