Finance hiring in 2027: who's hiring, what they ask for and what they pay

Finance hiring heading into 2027 is senior, accounting-heavy and increasingly AI-literate. Across 1,032 live US finance job postings from 511 companies, 79% are for senior individual contributors or above, and about a third (32%) require the hire to use AI on the job, as often as employers ask for budgeting or GAAP (33% each).

Pay follows the same shape. The median posted salary midpoint climbs from $87,000 for an individual contributor to $255,000 for a VP or Head of Finance, with the biggest single jump, $56,000, between Manager and Director. These findings come from Aleph's 2027 Finance Hiring Index, and this page is the free summary of what it found.

Bottom line: Finance employers in 2027 want experienced people who can pair finance judgment with AI. Accounting has more than twice as many openings as FP&A, FP&A pays more at most levels, and the Director step is worth more than any other promotion.

Who is hiring in finance in 2027?

Mostly companies looking for experienced accountants and mid-level finance managers. Manager and Controller roles are the single largest group, at 34% of postings, followed by Senior IC roles at 29%. Entry-level IC roles are only 18%, Directors 10% and VP or Head of Finance roles 6%.

By function, accounting and controllership dominate, at 56% of postings. FP&A and strategic finance make up 26%, general finance and leadership 10%, and tax and treasury 8%. That's 578 accounting postings against 268 for FP&A, so accounting has more than twice the openings.

The reason is a tight labor market. US accountants and auditors had 2% unemployment in 2025, and the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook projects about 115,300 openings for accountants and auditors each year through 2035. Someone has to close the books every month, and experienced accountants are leaving faster than they're being replaced.

This is the finance hiring market at a glance, level by level:

From Aleph's 2027 Finance Hiring Index: 1,032 US finance job postings from 511 companies on Greenhouse, Ashby and Lever, all live on October 1, 2026. Pay figures are the median midpoint of the posted salary range, across the 781 postings with a usable annual range. The remaining 3% of postings are other finance roles that fit none of the five levels.

Which industries are hiring finance talent, and where?

Tech and AI companies lead the sample, and the Bay Area pays the most. The Index sorts employers into seven broad industries. Finance roles at AI companies post the highest pay for their level, 23% above the national median, followed by financial services (8% above) and software and internet (6% above). Hardware and energy companies sit at the median. Health and life sciences (6% below), services and real estate (11% below) and consumer and media (12% below) trail.

Location moves pay as much as industry. Bay Area postings run 23% above the national median for the same level, while New York sits right at it. Remote and US-wide roles land 2% below, Washington DC 2% below, Los Angeles 3% below, Chicago 10% below, Boston 12% below and the rest of the US 17% below. More than a fifth of the postings are Bay Area roles, and they lift the national medians, so pay data that includes them runs high for most other markets.

The two effects overlap. Half of the AI-company postings are in California, and outside the Bay Area those companies post 9% below the national median. Inside it, they lead at 31% above.

What do finance jobs pay in 2027?

The median posted salary midpoint across all finance titles is $145,000. By level, it runs from $87,000 for an IC to $255,000 for a VP. The steps are steady through Manager, at $31,000 to $38,000 per promotion, then jump $56,000 to Director. Above Director, VP pay rises another $43,000 even though employers ask for almost the same experience, which points to scope rather than tenure.

Function matters too. Across all levels, the median FP&A posting lists $160,000 against $134,000 for accounting, and the widest gap is at Senior IC, where FP&A posts $26,000 more. General finance and leadership roles post a $170,000 median and tax and treasury $147,750. For the full ladder by level, function and city, see our breakdown of finance salaries by level, and for the function comparison, FP&A vs accounting salary in 2027.

Do finance jobs require AI skills?

About a third do. 32% of postings require the hire to use AI, counted only when the role calls for an AI skill, a named AI tool or building agents. That puts AI level with budgeting and GAAP (33% each) and just behind forecasting (39%) and audit support (34%). FP&A roles require it most often, at 40%, against 30% in accounting.

AI is being added to finance roles, not replacing the fundamentals: 88% of postings that require AI also name at least one core finance skill, such as forecasting, budgeting, GAAP, month-end close or audit support. Postings that require AI also list higher pay at every level, from $20,700 more at Senior IC to $30,400 at Director and $77,250 at VP, though about half of Bay Area postings require AI, so location explains part of that gap. Our guide to AI skills in finance job postings covers the detail.

What else do finance employers ask for?

Excel, a CPA and a few years of experience. These are the patterns that show up most:

• Tools: Excel appears in 52% of postings, more than any other tool by a wide margin. NetSuite follows at 29%, SQL at 14%, SAP at 10% and Python at 4%.
• Credentials: the CPA beats the MBA at every level, even VP, where 43% of postings mention a CPA and 29% an MBA. A bachelor's degree is table stakes.
• Experience: the median ask climbs about a year and a half per promotion through Manager (3, 4.5 and 6 years), then jumps to 9.75 years at Director and barely moves to 10 at VP.
• Finance engineers: 55 postings, 5.3% of the total, meet the Index's test for a finance engineer, a finance professional who uses AI, automation and systems thinking to redesign the work. 45 of the 55 sit in FP&A or strategic finance. Our webinar on meeting the finance engineer covers what the role looks like.

The spreadsheet isn't going anywhere. What employers want removed is the friction around it, such as manual pulls from the ERP, CRM and HRIS, so the analyst's time goes to the analysis.

Are finance jobs still remote?

Remote work is still common, but many postings don't say. 23% of postings explicitly offer remote work, 16% say onsite and 14% hybrid, while 47% don't specify an arrangement. Among postings that do state one, remote is the most common. Manager and Controller roles are the most likely to advertise it, at 28%, against 17% of IC postings.

Do finance job postings show salary ranges?

Most do now. 77% of postings in the Index publish a pay range. In states that require a range in the posting, 88% of finance postings include one, against 46% elsewhere, and companies that also hire in pay-transparency states disclose ranges 76% of the time even where they aren't required to, against 32% for companies that hire only outside those states.

Is it hard to get an entry-level finance job?

Yes, harder than in most of finance's history. Only 18% of postings are IC roles, and just 8% of postings with an experience requirement ask for two years or less. Even IC postings that state a requirement ask for a median three years. Accounting is where most of the doors are open: it makes up 61% of IC postings and 42 of the 74 postings that ask for two years or less.

The Index suggests one possible reason, without claiming it as the cause. If AI handles more of the execution work that junior analysts traditionally learned on, companies will lean toward experienced people who can pair judgment with AI. For the longer-term view, our post on the career path to CFO walks through the moves that get people from Controller to the top job.

What does finance hiring mean for your next hire's budget?

Price the role by level, function and location, not a blended finance number. A Senior FP&A role priced off the all-finance median lands well below what other companies post, and a Bay Area role priced off national data lands too low. The Index's hiring checklist comes down to four moves:

1. Define the work before the title. Write three outcomes the hire should own in the first six months, then set the level by decision-making scope.
2. Benchmark the same level, function and location. Use posted midpoints as a starting point, then add bonus and equity.
3. Turn AI fluency into a work sample. Give candidates an AI-assisted forecast or variance analysis to review, and score accuracy, assumptions and the recommendation.
4. Publish the range and the work arrangement. 23% of postings omit pay and 47% omit the arrangement, which costs both sides interviews.

Then put the role in the plan. Our guides to AI tools for headcount planning and tracking the headcount plan against actuals cover how to budget new roles and catch hiring drift, and the free headcount planning template gives you a starting model.

What should finance job seekers do with this data?

Benchmark the role you want, then prove you can do the work with AI. The Index's career checklist mirrors the hiring one from the other side of the table:

• Choose the work, then the title. Ask what you would own in the first six months and how success would be measured. A role with director-level scope under a manager title is the clearest case for asking for the higher range, because the Manager-to-Director step is worth $56,000 in posted pay.
• Benchmark by level, function and location. Compare the same level in the same function and market, then weigh bonus, equity and benefits on top of the posted range.
• Bring an AI work sample. Prepare one example of AI-assisted finance work and explain how you checked the output, challenged the assumptions and turned it into a recommendation. Employers that require AI still name a core finance skill in 88% of those postings, so the check matters as much as the tool.
• Translate experience into outcomes. Better forecasts, faster reporting, stronger controls or a decision you helped change will land better than a list of systems.
• Interview the role too. Ask how much of the week goes to gathering data versus analysis, and confirm the pay and work arrangement early, since so many postings leave them out.

If you're weighing a move into fractional or part-time work instead, our fractional CFO guide covers how that model works and how fractional leaders price their services.

How was the 2027 Finance Hiring Index built?

From job postings, not a survey. The team started with 16,060 company job boards on Greenhouse, Ashby and Lever, collected about 1,100 US finance postings, and had a model read each one and fill in the same fields: title family, function, years of experience, pay range, tools, skills, credentials, location and whether the role requires AI. Duplicates, internships, client-service roles at advisory firms and postings from before 2026 came out, leaving 1,032 postings, all live on October 1, 2026.

Keep three limits in mind. The sample leans toward venture-backed tech, because those companies tend to use these job boards. "National median" means the median of this US sample, not the whole finance workforce. And posted ranges cover base pay only, without bonus or equity.

Get the full 2027 Finance Hiring Index

The full report has every chart behind this page, the appendix tables by function and level, and checklists for both hiring managers and job seekers. Download the 2027 Finance Hiring Index. If you're the one hiring, expect the new hire to spend part of the week pulling actuals and rebuilding reports. Aleph connects your ERP, CRM and HRIS to Excel and Google Sheets so that work runs on its own, and its headcount planning keeps the hiring plan tied to payroll actuals. Book a demo to see it on your own numbers.