Treasury hiring across the DACH region is moving in different directions depending on team size and business circumstances. In current Treasurer Search mandates, smaller functions are adding capacity as their responsibilities expand, while larger teams are automating work and letting people go while also choosing to not replace leavers.

Employers also expect stronger technology skills from candidates at every level!

These observations come from our assignments, conversations with treasury professionals and employers, and our findings from looking at all treasury vacancies in DACH (mostly GER). They describe patterns in the labour market we see, rather than the volume or composition of vacancies across the whole DACH market. Together, they show how treasury roles are changing and what candidates might learn from it to become a more attractive candidate in a competitive environment.

Team size and business pressure

The clearest divide in our searches is between smaller and larger companies. Teams of one to five people are adding headcount. In functions with ten or more people, automation is taking on more routine work, and some departures are not being replaced, while team sizes are reduced.

Several current searches are linked to companies that are restructuring, refinancing or have a change in ownership. Under these conditions, we notice that the emphasis on treasury becomes greater. In these circumstances these companies have a lot of layoffs but the treasury department is growing. Cash positions and funding options need to be clear to the CFO and other decision-makers. Treasury gains visibility, but the expectations placed on the team also rise.

This helps explain why a company may hire into a small function even as a larger employer reduces the number of roles in its treasury department. The two decisions reflect different starting points: one team needs enough capacity to meet a growing remit; the other has the scale to automate and redistribute established processes.

Skills and routes into the profession

Treasury management system (TMS) experience is now expected across all the levels represented in our searches. Familiarity with treasury technology is an entry requirement rather than a point of distinction. Employers still need professionals who can interpret the information systems provide and use it in decisions about cash, funding and risk.

At the same time, routes into and through the profession appear narrower in our recent assignments. Interim demand has fallen, graduates are finding fewer opportunities to enter treasury, and Head of Treasury searches remain relatively rare.

The graduate pattern deserves attention. A business that requires TMS experience for even junior roles may find it harder to bring in people who could develop that experience on the job. If fewer new entrants are trained now, employers may face an even smaller pool of experienced treasury candidates later. The implication is particularly relevant for teams seeking to build capacity rather than hire only ready-made specialists.

AI and the next skills gap

AI presents a different picture from TMS. It is barely specifically mentioned in the vacancies we are working on, including searches for Heads of Treasury. Yet banks, TMS vendors and consultancies are incorporating AI into their products and services. Treasury teams will have to assess the tools they are offered, decide where they are useful and put suitable controls around their use.

There is no established hiring requirement for AI expertise in our current mandates. That leaves room for professionals who start building practical knowledge before it appears in job descriptions. The useful evidence is specific: what a tool was used for, how its output was checked and which decisions remained with the treasury team.

Access to that experience is uneven. Larger departments are better placed to fund tools, training and controls. Smaller teams may have an immediate need for more capacity but limited time or budget to test new technology. The gap between those teams could affect both the pace of adoption and the experience candidates bring to future roles.

For employers, the central hiring question is what their treasury team must be able to handle under pressure, and whether its structure allows people to develop. For professionals, TMS fluency is increasingly assumed; treasury depth and business judgement are more likely to distinguish one candidate from another. AI knowledge can add to that profile when it rests on work the candidate can explain and define, also in the CV where it is rarely seen.

When a PE firm acquires a business, it also acquires the knowledge held by the people who run it.

Sometimes this knowledge is documented, but unfortunately it often is not.

CFO knows which bank will approve a temporary facility. Finance manager knows why the cash forecast does not match the ERP. Controller knows which subsidiary regularly pays late. Another person understands the FX positions, the guarantees and the informal agreements that never made it into the transaction documents.

If that person leaves after closing, the company may lose more than a member of the finance team.

The knowledge is not always in the data room

Smaller, founder-led businesses often operate with limited formal processes. The company may have grown successfully without a dedicated treasury function, a central cash structure or a detailed bank relationship map.

Even without documented processes, a business may still have treasury knowledge, but it may sit with just one person.

During due diligence, buyers should ask where the practical knowledge lives. They should look beyond job titles and organisation charts. The person responsible for treasury may be the CFO, a financial controller or a local finance manager who has never used the word “treasurer” in their title.

Warning signs include:

• One person approving all bank access changes
• No written overview of bank accounts and signatories
• Cash forecasts built manually by one employee
• FX decisions based on personal knowledge rather than policy
• Lender communication managed by the departing owner or CFO
• Unclear responsibilities between group and local finance teams

These are people risks with direct financial consequences.

Build the handover before closing

Planning the transition before the deal closes gives the buyer time to identify who holds key information and decide how to retain, transfer, or replace that knowledge.

The handover should cover the banking structure, financing documents, guarantees, cash movements, intercompany balances, FX positions, payment controls and forecasting routines. It should also include the decisions that are not obvious from a report, such as why certain banks are used and which payments require special attention.

This process does not require a large treasury department, but clear ownership and enough time to transfer the knowledge properly.

When interim support makes sense

An interim treasurer can provide continuity when the existing key person leaves, stays only for a short handover or cannot support the new ownership structure. They can document the function, protect liquidity and give the CFO a reliable view of the business while the permanent organisation takes shape.

That person can also help decide what the business needs next. The answer may be a permanent group treasurer. It may be a treasury manager supported by the CFO. It may be a central function that grows as the buy-and-build strategy develops.

The important decision comes first: do not let critical treasury knowledge leave without a plan.

Treasurer Search works with PE firms and portfolio companies that need treasury expertise during acquisitions, transitions and periods of growth. We understand the difference between filling a vacancy and protecting a business during a change in ownership.

We’re proud to have closed a search for a Treasury & Investment Relations Manager at an international retail organisation with a strong presence across the Benelux.

The search took us across the border. The client asked us to look for candidates in both Brussels and Amsterdam, with a network in both area’s this gave us a larger pool of candidates to work with.

The process wasn’t linear. After the first interviews, two strong candidates withdrew: one accepted another offer, and the other decided to stay in their current role. Our network allowed us to introduce new candidates quickly, and they matched the requirements just as well.

One of them came from a relationship we had been building for years. We had stayed in touch for a long time, and we already knew their ambitions when the right role appeared. Those conversations have now become a placement.

Recruitment does not run in a straight line. Last-minute schedule changes, unexpected counter-offers and mismatched expectations are part of the job. Working through them is what makes a good match so rewarding.

Are you hiring a treasury or investor relations professional? Or are you considering your next move?  Get in touch with our team via info@treasurersearch.com 

We successfully placed a Treasury Risk Manager in Hamburg, after joining a search that was already well underway.

Four other recruitment agencies were already looking for the right person when we became involved. The client had been searching for some time, and several candidates were already in the process. We knew we were joining late, but felt there was still an opportunity to bring in our network.

The role required someone with experience in financial risk management, including FX, interest rates, liquidity and investments. The client also needed someone who could work independently and help build structure in a treasury function that was still developing. We focused on understanding that combination properly. The technical experience mattered, but so did the candidate’s ability to work in an environment where not every process was already in place. We were looking for someone who could contribute from day one and take ownership of their area.

Eight days after we joined the search, we introduced the candidate who was eventually placed. That was a great result, especially considering the head start the other agencies had. The process still took a little longer to complete. Holidays and other candidates already in the process meant that the final decision needed some time. But the client and candidate remained interested, and the placement was successfully finalised.

Joining a search late, with four other agencies already involved, is never the easiest starting point. But a good network can still make a difference.

This placement was a good reminder that the timing of a search does not decide the outcome. Sometimes the right candidate is still out there, and the right introduction is all it takes to move things forward.

Are you looking for a treasury professional who fits both the role and the team? Get in touch.

After writing about why treasury professionals stay with Belgian companies, I was asked whether a Netherlands version would say anything new.

The honest answer is that it would not give four completely different reasons.

Treasury professionals in both countries care about trust, the quality of their manager, flexibility and development. Those foundations are familiar. The difference is in the questions people ask before they decide whether a new role is worth the change.

Trust becomes transparency

A treasury professional wants to believe in the company they work for. That is true in Belgium and the Netherlands.

The Dutch version of that question often sounds like this: do I understand how decisions are made, how pay progresses and where the company is going?

Professionals want a clear view of the arrangement. They look at salary, bonus potential, development opportunities and expectations around office attendance. They also want to know whether management will support the treasury function when the next investment, refinancing or transformation project comes along.

Clarity does not mean every decision will go the employee’s way. It means the reasoning is visible and consistent.

That can be a strong reason to stay. People are often willing to accept a decision they do not fully agree with when they understand how it was reached.

A good manager becomes a manager who gives room

A supportive manager matters everywhere. Treasury teams are small, and the relationship with the manager shapes the daily experience of the job.

In the Netherlands, autonomy may be an especially important part of that relationship. Professionals want to be trusted with their area of responsibility. They want access to decision-makers and the freedom to raise concerns, improve processes and take ownership of projects.

A manager who checks every detail can make a technically interesting role feel narrow. A manager who gives people room can make a demanding role feel worthwhile.

That room needs boundaries. Treasury professionals still need priorities, feedback and support when a decision carries risk. Autonomy works when expectations are clear and the manager remains available.

Flexibility becomes respect for time

Hybrid work is no longer a line in a vacancy text. People want to know how it affects their week.

How long is the commute? Which meetings need to happen in person? Can the team work together without treating home-working days as a sign of lower commitment?

These questions matter because changing employer can mean changing a person’s entire routine. A candidate may be interested in the role, the salary and the company, then decide the move asks too much of their time.

The employers that retain people make the working model understandable. They explain why the team meets in person, give managers consistent guidance and judge performance by the work rather than by office visibility alone.

That is a retention decision, not just a workplace policy.

Growth becomes expertise and influence

A new title is one way to grow, but not the only one.

Treasury professionals can develop by owning a TMS implementation, improving cash forecasting, leading a refinancing or gaining more exposure to FX, funding and financial risk. They can build experience with automation, analytics and international operations.

Those opportunities matter because treasury is changing. Organisations need professionals who can understand the numbers, improve the process and explain the implications to people outside treasury.

Someone may stay in the same role for several years if the scope keeps expanding and the work remains interesting. The title may not change quickly. The contribution can.

That only works when the employee receives ownership, visibility and recognition. More tasks are not the same as more development.

The Dutch and Belgian stories are close, but not identical

The comparison does not need a dramatic conclusion. There is no need to force a cultural difference where the evidence points to common ground.

The same four foundations appear in both markets: trust in the company, a good relationship with the manager, a working model that fits daily life and the chance to keep developing.

The emphasis can differ. In the Netherlands, transparency, autonomy and respect for people’s time may deserve more attention. In Belgium, the full employment package, including benefits, salary structures and regional context, may play a larger part in the conversation.

For employers, the practical question is not which country has the better retention formula. It is what the individual employee needs to keep choosing the role.

Salary still matters. So does the title. But an experienced treasury professional is also deciding whether the move will give them a better working relationship, a clearer future, more influence or a working week that fits their life.

That is why retention starts before someone resigns. It is built through the everyday experience of the role.

A refinancing does not start when the loan reaches its maturity date.

By then, the lender has already formed an opinion about the business. The quality of the forecasts, the covenant reporting, the communication and the company’s cash position have all shaped that opinion.

For many PE-backed companies, the refinancing conversation is moving closer. European market reports point to growing attention on debt raised in 2021 and 2022, when financing structures often assumed lower interest costs and stronger exit conditions. Refinancing activity already represents a large share of European lending, with borrowers seeking to extend maturities and prepare for a more selective credit market.

The calendar is not the problem

The problem starts when a company treats the maturity date as the first deadline.

A lender does not only want to know whether the company can repay or refinance the debt. The lender wants to understand how the business generates cash, how much room exists under the covenants and how management responds when the forecast changes.

That requires reliable information.

The treasury team should be able to explain:

• the group’s liquidity position by entity and currency
• the expected cash balance over the next 13 weeks
• covenant headroom under different scenarios
• upcoming debt, interest and amortisation payments
• available facilities and undrawn commitments
• the impact of acquisitions, capex and working capital on cash

If these answers take weeks to produce, the refinancing process has already started from a weak position.

Why treasury matters to the lender story

A refinancing is often presented as a financing project. It is also a test of financial control.

Lenders want evidence that the management team understands its cash flows. Sponsors want confidence that the company can fund its plan. The CFO needs to present a clear and consistent picture to both groups.

Treasury sits at the centre of that process. It connects the bank accounts, the forecast, the debt structure and the daily decisions that affect liquidity. It also identifies problems before they appear in a monthly management report.

This work becomes harder when the business has grown through acquisitions, operates across several countries or relies on manual reporting. A portfolio company can have strong commercial performance and still struggle to explain where its cash will be in six weeks.

Start earlier than feels necessary

A sensible refinancing plan starts at least 12 months before maturity. It begins with a review of the existing facilities and the quality of the available data. It tests the forecast against lower sales, delayed collections, higher interest costs or an acquisition that closes later than planned.

It also gives the company time to fix weaknesses. Bank account data can be consolidated. Reporting can be standardised. Covenant calculations can be documented. The company can approach lenders with facts rather than urgent explanations.

A permanent treasurer may be the right answer for an established group. A refinancing project may call for an interim treasurer with direct experience of lender processes, covenant reporting and debt negotiations.

The best refinancing discussions start before the company needs new money.

Treasurer Search places interim and permanent treasury professionals in PE-backed companies across the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg. If the debt maturity is on the calendar, the treasury work should already be underway.

The deal team has reviewed the market, the management team, the customer base and the numbers.

The investment case looks strong. But there is one simple question that most of the time comes too late: What happens to treasury after closing?

Commercial, financial and legal due diligence receive more attention than treasury due diligence. Yet it can expose risks that affect liquidity, debt capacity and the first months of ownership. Recent European private equity research identifies the predictability of cash flows as one of the main obstacles to debt financing. That should put treasury higher on the transaction agenda.

What Gets Missed

A target may report healthy EBITDA and still create problems for its new owner. Cash may sit in the wrong entities. Local bank accounts may have unclear signatories. The business may depend on a single overdraft facility or one informal banking relationship. FX exposure may exist without a written policy. Intercompany loans may have grown over time without clear terms or repayment plans.

The data room may contain bank statements, debt schedules and financial reports. That does not always provide a working picture of how cash moves through the business every day.

A proper treasury review should answer questions such as:

• Who controls the bank accounts?
• Which facilities, guarantees and security arrangements will survive closing?
• How much cash can the group access immediately?
• Which currencies create material exposure?
• How reliable is the short-term cash forecast?
• Which treasury responsibilities sit with one person?

These questions do not slow down a transaction, but rather reduce the number of surprises after it closes.

The Question Nobody Owns

In many transactions, finance assumes that treasury belongs to the CFO. The CFO assumes that the local finance teams know the detail. The deal team assumes that the issue can be resolved during integration.

That gap will create risks in the long run.

After closing, the CFO may need to manage a new reporting structure, lender communication, integration decisions and the sponsor relationship. Asking the CFO to reconstruct bank relationships, design a cash forecast and set up an FX framework at the same time is not exactly the best use of that person’s time.

What Good Looks Like

The strongest buyers decide before signing who will own treasury on Day 1. They identify the information that must transfer from the seller, document the banking structure and assess whether the existing team has the capacity and experience to manage the new group.

Sometimes the answer is a permanent hire. Sometimes it is an interim treasurer who starts before closing, supports the transition and builds the foundation for the next phase.

The point is simple: treasury should be part of the investment plan, not an item added to the post-closing checklist.

At Treasurer Search, we work with PE firms and portfolio companies across the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg. We help them find the treasury expertise they need before a transaction becomes an operational problem.

When I approach treasury professionals in Belgium about a new role, the answer is not always driven by salary or job title. Many decide to stay because their current employer still gives them good reasons to do so.

That deserves more attention. Recruitment conversations often focus on why people leave: a difficult manager, limited progression, a long commute or a better offer elsewhere. But employers can learn just as much by looking at the people who are approached and decide that moving would not improve their situation.

From my conversations with treasury professionals in Belgium, four reasons come up regularly: confidence in the company, the working environment and relationship with the manager, flexibility, and the opportunity to grow and have an impact.

Confidence in the company

Stability is often misunderstood as a preference for safety. For many treasury professionals, it is more specific. They have confidence in the company they work for, they understand its direction, trust its leadership and believe the business is in a sound position.

The function has close contact with liquidity, funding, banking relationships and financial risk. Treasury professionals often have a clearer view of a company’s financial position than many other employees. When they believe in the business and its plans, leaving for an unfamiliar organisation can feel like giving up something valuable.

A new role may offer a higher salary, but candidates also ask questions about the company behind it. How stable is the business? How seriously does management take treasury? Will planned investments go ahead? Is the role supported, or was it created to solve a problem without enough resources?

Employers retain people when they give clear answers through their actions. A credible strategy, sensible investment decisions and open communication give employees reasons to stay.

The manager and working environment

The relationship with the manager carries a lot of weight. Treasury teams are often small, which makes the quality of day-to-day working relationships hard to ignore. One difficult relationship can affect the whole role. A good one can make an external opportunity much less attractive.

Professionals tend to value managers who give them room to do their job, involve them in decisions and remain available when support is needed. They also notice whether credit is shared and whether mistakes can be discussed without blame.

The wider working environment matters too. People build knowledge of the business and relationships with colleagues in finance, tax, accounting, legal and operations. Those relationships make the work easier and often more interesting. Starting elsewhere means rebuilding that internal network.

This is one reason retention cannot sit with HR alone. The experience of working for a company is influenced heavily by the direct manager and the team around them.

Flexibility that works in daily life

Flexibility has become part of how any professional assess an opportunity. They look beyond the number of home-working days in a vacancy text. They want to know how the arrangement works in the team.

Can people plan office days around meetings that benefit from being face to face? Is flexibility treated as normal, or does using it come with an unspoken penalty? How much commuting time will the role add each week?

These questions are practical. A job can be attractive in content and salary, yet still be a poor move if it makes daily life harder. An employer that offers workable flexibility has a strong retention advantage, especially when the employee already knows and trusts the arrangement.

Consistency matters here. Employees are more likely to value flexibility when expectations are clear and managers apply them fairly.

Growth without waiting for a new title

Belgium has a limited number of senior treasury roles. According to our recent report, in the first half of 2026, only 28% were senior roles and 7% Executive/VP roles.  That does not mean treasury professionals can only develop by waiting for the next Head of Treasury or Group Treasurer vacancy.

The employers that retain good people find ways to expand the role itself. Someone may take ownership of a TMS implementation, lead a refinancing workstream, improve cash forecasting or gain more exposure to senior management. A treasury professional can also grow by taking responsibility for a new region, mentoring a colleague or becoming more involved in policy and decision-making.

This kind of development is especially relevant in smaller teams, where formal promotion steps may be limited. An employee may keep the same title while their judgement, influence and range of responsibilities increase considerably.

For employers, this requires active attention. Extra work alone is not development. The employee needs ownership, visibility and a clear sense that their contribution is recognised. Managers should discuss what growth means to the individual rather than assuming that everyone wants the same career path.

What employers can take from this

Salary still matters.It can prompt someone to listen to an approach and can make an offer difficult to refuse. But it is not often the only factor considered by experienced treasury professionals.

A person who trusts the company, works well with their manager, has useful flexibility and can keep developing already has a strong reason to stay. A new employer must offer enough improvement to justify giving up all four.

For Belgian treasury teams, retention starts well before an employee resigns. It is built through everyday management, credible company decisions and conversations about how someone’s role can develop. In a market with limited senior positions, giving people more influence may be more meaningful than giving them a new title.

Late to the party, but still in time to find the perfect match.

August is often seen as a difficult month for recruitment. People are away enjoying their well-deserved holidays, decision-making slows down, and calendars can be hard to coordinate. This placement was a good reminder that the right network and one focused day can change that.

A client contacted us about an urgent interim treasurer need after first trying to find the right person through another agency. That is why we were late to the party, but our interim network gave us a strong starting point. With the largest interim treasurer pool in the Benelux and DACH region, we were able to move quickly and identify the right  match for this assignment.

Within the first couple of hours, we spoke with the right candidates, checked the details of the assignment and we were able to present the right candidate that turned out to be the perfect match for the client’s needs.

The placement was completed within a single day, which is often the standard for our interim assignments.

This is what a strong interim pool makes possible. Even during the summer holidays, the right professional can be found when the network is active, the brief is clear and the search receives focused attention.

One day. One candidate presented. One successful interim placement.

Can I help you too in finding a perfect match? Get in touch.

Since the start of Treasurer Search in 2009, we keep track of the markets we are active in. Originally fully manual, gradually automating further. It will not come as a surprise we nowadays include AI in these processes. In this article we want to share what analysis of the treasury labour market shows. In gathering data we of course aim at full coverage but do know that is not feasible. At executive level, for example, recruitment processes often are not visiible to us. At entry level, we see in various countries that people enter the labour market in different ways.

Treasury hiring across the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium in the first half of 2026 produced  aproximatelly 1,300 vacancies in our database. Read together rather than separately, those three markets tell a story that no single country report can: the same function, recruited in three structurally different ways.

Germany hires across the full depth of the ladder and builds capability internally. The Netherlands hires for technical execution and has been reshaped by employers who were not competing for treasury talent a decade ago. Belgium hires almost exclusively for experience and has effectively stopped developing its own.

Looking at volume, seniority, sector demand and geographic concentration reveals where each market is strong, where it is stretched, and what that means for anyone hiring or moving across borders.

Market Volume

Germany produced 1,014 vacancies against 238 in the Netherlands and 126 in Belgium. Much of that reflects the relative size of each economy. What the sector split adds is that manufacturing accounts for 18.9% of German vacancies against 8.4% in the Netherlands, pointing to an industrial base that carries treasury headcount of its own.

Seniority Level

The clearest divergence is at the bottom of the ladder. Germany placed 18.2% of its vacancies in internships and traineeships, with a further 5.9% in junior roles, meaning close to a quarter of all German treasury hiring sits at entry level. The Netherlands recorded 12.2% in internships and 4.2% junior. Belgium recorded a single treasury internship across the six months and six junior vacancies, together under 6% of its market.

That difference is institutional rather than cyclical. The Werkstudent, Praktikum and Ausbildung system gives German employers a structured route to build treasury capability internally. Dutch employers use internships to similar effect, though at lower volume. Belgian employers do neither at any scale, and are consequently buying almost every treasury professional they need from a pool nobody is replenishing.

At the top, the pattern reverses. Executive and Head of Treasury roles accounted for 7.1% of the Belgian market against 4.8% in Germany and 2.5% in the Netherlands. On absolute numbers this reads differently: 49 leadership vacancies in Germany against nine in Belgium and six in the Netherlands. Germany is the only market where treasury leadership search runs at a steady frequency; elsewhere it is an occasional event.

The middle of the ladder is where the comparison gets slippery. Belgium put 59.5% of its vacancies at mid-level against Germany’s 31%, and Germany carried 40% in the senior band against Belgium’s 27.8%. Job titles drive these bands, and German employers apply the Manager label more readily than Belgian ones, so read the gap as indicative rather than exact.

Industry Overview

Banking, insurance and asset management remains the largest single sector in Germany at 25.1%, and shares the lead in Belgium at 18.4%. In the Netherlands it has been overtaken. Technology, software and telecom led the Dutch market with 23.5% against banking’s 20.6%, with Booking.com, Adyen and ASML now competing directly with ABN AMRO, ING and Rabobank for the same profiles. That reordering has consequences for pay benchmarks that reach well beyond the technology sector itself.

Manufacturing and industrials accounted for 18.9% of German vacancies, the second largest sector there and roughly double its share in the Netherlands. Siemens, BASF, Salzgitter and the wider Mittelstand run treasury as a standalone function rather than an appendage of group finance.

Belgium’s distinguishing sector is healthcare and life sciences at 18.4%, level with banking. Johnson & Johnson in Beerse, UCB, IBA and Eurofins give the country a life-sciences treasury base with no equivalent concentration in either neighbouring market.

Consulting and advisory tracks the size of the underlying market: 9.3% in Germany, 8% in Belgium and 4.2% in the Netherlands. Where that share is low, treasury transformation work is more likely being resourced internally.

Location Overview

Geographic concentration varies more sharply than any other measure. Belgium is the most centralised market: 55.2% of vacancies sit in the Brussels region including Zaventem, Diegem and Machelen, with Flanders adding 28.8% and Wallonia registering a single vacancy across six months. Treasury in Belgium is a Brussels and Flanders function, and any search built on a different assumption will exhaust its candidate pool quickly.

The Netherlands is concentrated but not closed. The Amsterdam metro area accounted for 40.3%, with Rotterdam and The Hague at 19.3% and Utrecht at 12.6%. Hybrid arrangements out of Amsterdam draw candidates from both without requiring relocation, which effectively widens the pool beyond what the headline figure suggests.

Germany has no dominant hub at all. Frankfurt led on 9.7%, followed by Hamburg at 8.6%, Munich at 8.4%, Duesseldorf at 8% and Berlin at 7.1%. No single city passes 10%, and the top fifteen cities together account for only 55.6% of vacancies, with the balance spread across a further 244 locations. Recruiting in Germany means engaging with several regional markets plus a long industrial tail rather than one national one.

Taken together, the H1 2026 data describes three markets that are converging on the same profile of treasury professional while approaching the supply problem in opposite ways. Germany builds, the Netherlands partly builds and partly buys, and Belgium buys. Where volume is smallest, competition for experienced practitioners is sharpest, because there is no pipeline behind them.

For employers, the practical implications differ by market. In Belgium, the absence of any junior intake means competition for mid-level talent will not ease on its own, and interim mandates are already filling part of the leadership gap. In the Netherlands, salary benchmarks are increasingly set outside financial services. In Germany, the assumption that Frankfurt is the answer is worth testing, since Duesseldorf, Munich and Hamburg often offer deeper local supply and materially less competition.

For professionals, the cross-border picture is encouraging at mid and senior level, where all three markets are active, and considerably harder at the top. Between them, these markets produced approximately 60 Executive and Head of Treasury vacancies in six months. Depth, systems fluency and cross-sector exposure remain the qualities that separate candidates in every one of them.