Before outreach begins, clients receive a written view of the market. What follows here is a selection of that intelligence made public as a signal of research depth and operating perspective.
The market for senior professionals does not stay still. Compensation expectations shift. Talent concentrations move. Industries that were talent-rich become talent-scarce with little warning.
At our firm, every engagement begins with a written market brief — a clear view of what the talent market actually looks like for this role, at this level, in this location. That intelligence is produced before a single candidate is approached.
The briefs shared publicly here reflect that research posture. They are not marketing. They are the same quality of thinking we bring into every client conversation.
What a market brief covers
Full market briefs are delivered as part of every client engagement. To receive a brief for a specific role you are hiring, start a conversation with the firm.
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The shortage is not a pipeline problem that will resolve in a few years. It is structural. The number of qualified professionals entering the field is outpaced by the creation of new roles, the expansion of threat surfaces, and the increasing specialization that modern security programs require. Organizations that treat CISO and senior security hiring as a straightforward search are consistently disappointed by the timeline and the quality of the slate they receive from generalist firms.
Demand in cybersecurity has grown 19% year over year. For organizations competing for this talent, the recruiting advantage goes to firms with direct relationships in the security community — not to those querying the same resume databases as everyone else.
Within that figure, the demand for senior technology leadership — not just technical contributors — continues to grow faster than supply. CIOs and CTOs with both technical credibility and business acumen remain among the hardest searches to complete on compressed timelines.
Market rates for contingency placement of senior IT and cybersecurity professionals have settled in the 20–30% range. This is a function of search complexity and candidate scarcity, not fee positioning. Organizations evaluating search costs should understand what that rate reflects.
Accounting graduate enrollment has declined for three consecutive years. The number of people sitting for the CPA exam has dropped significantly. And the pipeline problem compounds as firms compete harder for the same shrinking pool of credentialed professionals.
The result is that senior finance and accounting searches take longer, require stronger networks to reach passive candidates, and demand more precision in how roles are scoped and positioned. Organizations that write the same finance leader job description they used five years ago and expect the same response volume are operating on outdated assumptions.
The most common source of misalignment in CFO searches is an imprecise answer to that question. A CFO who excels at M&A and investor relations is a different hire than one who builds accounting infrastructure. Defining which role is open before the search begins is not a formality. It determines who gets on the slate.
Fee ranges reflect the search difficulty and candidate seniority. CFO and VP-level searches in markets with high PE activity or public company density command the higher end of that range.
Senior roles in healthcare systems and life sciences organizations require candidates who carry both. A COO who has never operated inside a regulated clinical environment brings a different risk profile than one who has. The same is true for CIOs in hospital systems — technology leaders with healthcare-specific experience are meaningfully scarcer than general enterprise IT leaders.
Searches in this sector are most effective when the recruiter understands the difference between a role that requires a clinical background and one that requires familiarity with clinical operations. That distinction changes the search entirely.
In life sciences, regulatory affairs, clinical operations, and medical affairs roles carry compensation premiums that reflect the specificity of the expertise. Generalist sourcing frequently misses the passive candidates who hold this experience.
Fee ranges are consistent with the broader market for senior contingency placement. Executive roles with narrow specialization requirements trend toward the upper end of the range.
The full brief goes deeper than what is published here. It is specific to your role, your market, and your timing. It is available as part of every engagement and as a starting point before one begins.
Request a Market Brief