Why professional services are becoming the next source of hiring demand in financial crime. 

Financial crime recruitment has long revolved around familiar territory. Banks, payment firms, investment managers and insurers have carried the bulk of regulatory scrutiny, building teams around anti-money laundering, sanctions, customer due diligence and transaction monitoring because regulators expected them to do so.

Law firms, accountancies and estate agents have worked under the same broad anti-money laundering regime, but their operating models have developed along a different path – compliance teams have tended to be smaller, responsibilities have often sat across legal, risk and finance functions, and specialist financial crime appointments have remained less common.

The UK government’s plan to appoint the Financial Conduct Authority as the single Professional Services Supervisor will make that distinction harder to sustain. The reform brings large parts of the regulated professional services market under a common supervisory structure, with more consistent expectations around how firms assess risk, monitor clients and respond to suspected financial crime.

For businesses that haven’t experienced the intensity of FCA supervision, the implications extend well beyond reporting lines and regulatory correspondence. They reach into team design, control ownership and the level of specialist knowledge required to satisfy a regulator accustomed to examining financial crime frameworks in detail.

Broadgate’s Contract Director, Daniel Tapsell, explores what that means for both the financial crime talent market and the firms preparing for a new era of AML supervision.

From professional standards to financial crime governance

Professional services firms have traditionally approached anti-money laundering through a combination of legal obligation and professional conduct. Client due diligence, source of funds checks and suspicious activity reporting have formed part of broader governance arrangements rather than dedicated financial crime operating models.

An FCA-led structure will place those arrangements under more consistent examination. A single supervisor can compare firms across sectors, apply common expectations and identify differences in capability that were less visible when oversight sat across several professional bodies.

That comparison is likely to draw attention to areas where ownership has been diffuse or specialist knowledge has depended on a small number of senior staff. Many firms will need to show who holds responsibility for financial crime risk, how controls are tested and whether senior management receives enough information to challenge weaknesses.

Banks have treated the Money Laundering Reporting Officer as a defined control role for years, supported by sanctions specialists, investigators and assurance teams. Comparable positions remain less common across law, accountancy and property businesses, even where firms handle client money, complex ownership structures and high-value transactions. Greater consistency in supervision will place those differences under closer scrutiny. 

  • Advice for hiring managers - Don’t wait for regulatory supervision to uncover capability gaps. Review who owns financial crime risk, assess whether or not their responsibilities are clearly defined, and identify where interim support could strengthen your governance before expectations increase.

The compliance agenda is becoming broader

The PSS reform arrives as financial crime functions are already dealing with a wider set of obligations.

The UK sanctions regime has required firms to respond to frequent changes in designated persons, ownership rules and reporting expectations. For professional services businesses with international clients or cross-border instructions, sanctions compliance now depends on more than screening a name at onboarding.

Firms need to understand indirect ownership, changes in control and the movement of funds through structures that may involve several jurisdictions. They also need clear escalation routes when screening results are uncertain or commercial pressure conflicts with compliance judgement.

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act adds another layer through stronger expectations around fraud prevention and corporate accountability. Together, these measures are pushing financial crime beyond a narrow focus on client acceptance and towards a broader model covering sanctions, fraud, governance and ongoing monitoring.

This changes the hiring requirement. A compliance professional with deep experience in one area may still add value, but firms will also need people who can connect customer due diligence, sanctions controls and fraud risk within one operating framework.

Professional services employers entering that market will compete with banks and regulated financial institutions that have spent years building those teams.

  • Advice for Hiring Managers – Hire for breadth as well as depth. Candidates who can connect AML, sanctions, fraud prevention and governance will add more long-term value than specialists whose experience is limited to a single discipline.

FICA experience becomes more transferable

The search for relevant talent may extend beyond the UK as firms look for professionals who have worked under established anti-money laundering regimes in other jurisdictions.

South African candidates with Financial Intelligence Centre Act experience are one example. Many have managed risk-based onboarding, beneficial ownership reviews, enhanced due diligence and suspicious transaction reporting across legal, financial and advisory environments.

Those responsibilities align with the work UK professional services firms are likely to formalise as supervision becomes more consistent. The legal framework differs, but the underlying disciplines of risk assessment, escalation and control testing travel well across borders.

Employers have often treated FICA experience as jurisdiction-specific, particularly when a role required direct knowledge of UK regulation. The development of a common supervisory model gives firms a stronger reason to separate technical rules from transferable financial crime capability.

That distinction could open a wider talent pool at a time when demand for experienced MLROs and financial crime specialists is likely to increase.

  • Advice for Hiring Managers – Expand your search beyond traditional UK talent pools. Candidates with experience under comparable AML regimes often bring transferable skills that can strengthen financial crime functions while easing pressure in a competitive hiring market.

Transaction monitoring moves beyond banking

Transaction monitoring has traditionally been associated with banks because payment activity provides a large and continuous source of data for identifying unusual behaviour.

Professional services firms generate different forms of transactional evidence. Client accounts, property purchases, trust structures, corporate formations and cross-border transfers can all create patterns that require review.

The underlying governance questions are familiar to anyone who has worked in financial services. Firms need to know whether unusual behaviour can be identified with consistency, whether alerts reflect the risks present and whether the rules or models behind those alerts continue to perform as intended.

Banks have built established disciplines around calibration, validation and independent assurance because poorly designed monitoring creates two problems. Weak models miss suspicious activity, while over-sensitive models create volumes of alerts that teams can’t investigate with enough care.

Professional services firms adopting more advanced monitoring technology will encounter the same tension. Buying a system won’t settle the question of whether its outputs are reliable, and accountability for that judgement will need to sit somewhere within the control framework.

This creates demand for professionals who understand transaction monitoring model risk as well as financial crime operations. Candidates from banking, payments and fintech may therefore find their experience relevant to sectors that haven’t traditionally recruited from those markets.

  • Advice for Hiring Managers – Technology won’t satisfy regulatory expectations by itself. Prioritise hiring professionals who understand transaction monitoring governance, model performance and assurance alongside day-to-day financial crime operations.

A buyer market taking shape

Financial crime recruitment has concentrated on banks, fintechs and payment firms because those sectors have generated the most visible demand.

A single professional services supervisor extends that market across large law firms, national accountancy practices, estate agency groups and corporate service providers. Many will need stronger financial crime governance, but few recruitment businesses have developed a clear proposition around this audience.

The commercial opportunity lies in understanding the hiring requirement before it becomes a standard procurement category. Some firms will need permanent MLRO appointments, while others will require interim support to assess controls, prepare for FCA scrutiny or build a financial crime function from the ground up.

Contract hiring is likely to play a central role because many organisations won’t yet know what the permanent structure should look like. An experienced interim MLRO or financial crime programme lead can define responsibilities, identify gaps and establish the controls that a future team will inherit.

Recruiters who can speak to those needs in operational terms will enter the market with an advantage over firms still treating financial crime as a banking specialism.

Looking beyond financial services

The appointment of a single Professional Services Supervisor will bring sectors with different histories into a more consistent regulatory framework.

Law firms, accountancies and estate agents won’t become banks, and their risk profiles will continue to reflect the clients, transactions and professional duties specific to each sector. The standard of financial crime governance, however, is likely to move closer to the level already expected across regulated financial services.

Hiring leaders will therefore need to look beyond direct sector experience. The stronger question will concern whether a candidate can establish ownership, defend control decisions and operate under sustained regulatory examination.

Much of that capability already exists across banking, payments, consulting and overseas anti-money laundering markets. The next stage of professional services supervision will make its relevance much easier to see.

  • Advice for Hiring Managers - If your future operating model is still evolving, consider interim expertise first. Experienced contract leaders can establish governance, identify gaps and help define the permanent team structure before long-term hiring decisions are made.

As the FCA prepares to become the Single Professional Services Supervisor, many organisations are still deciding what their financial crime capability should look like. If you’re assessing how these changes could affect your team, governance model or hiring plans, Daniel Tapsell would be happy to share what he’s seeing across the market. Contact him directly for a confidential conversation: Daniel.tapsell@broadgatesearch.com.