Tax
Employment & Global Mobility Tax Search
Retained search for employment and global mobility tax partners and teams leading expatriate tax, employment tax, executive compensation and expatriate social security.
Market overview
Employment and global mobility tax has been reshaped by the shift from traditional expatriate postings to a work-from-anywhere world. Long-term assignments are being supplemented and sometimes replaced by shorter, more flexible arrangements, hybrid working across jurisdictions and senior executives operating from multiple locations without relocating, all of which multiply the number of taxable touchpoints firms must manage [1]. The result is more complexity per employee, not less, and a corresponding pull on specialist talent.
Enforcement is moving faster than most employers' internal tracking. Remote and cross-border work can inadvertently trigger employer filing obligations, payroll withholding exposure and even permanent-establishment risk, and tax authorities are policing this more rigorously than companies' own reporting can keep up with [2]. That gap is what drives clients to engage mobility tax advisers, and what makes experienced partners in this field valuable.
The discipline is broad. It spans expatriate income tax and tax equalisation, employment tax and payroll, executive and equity compensation, and expatriate social security and totalisation, and it increasingly intersects with transfer pricing where mobile senior people affect where value is created [1]. Firms want leaders who can run the full mobility offering rather than a single sliver of it.
Asia Pacific, with Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia as major regional employment hubs, and the Gulf as a magnet for expatriate executives, is a particularly active market. We run retained search for employment and global mobility tax partners and teams who can lead this work across the Big Four, mid-tier networks and independents.
What we cover
- Expatriate tax
- Employment tax
- Executive compensation
- Expatriate social security
Roles we place
Global Mobility & Expatriate
- Global Mobility Tax Partner
- Expatriate Tax Director
- Senior Manager, Global Mobility
- Mobility Tax Advisory Manager
Employment Tax & Reward
- Employment Tax Partner
- Executive Compensation Director
- Equity & Reward Tax Lead
- Payroll Tax Specialist
Social Security & Policy
- Expatriate Social Security Specialist
- Totalisation & Coverage Lead
- Global Mobility Policy Director
Candidate profile
Chartered accountant or chartered tax adviser (CA / CPA / CTA) with personal and employment tax depth; ADIT or international tax grounding for cross-border assignment work.
Experience across expatriate tax equalisation, employment tax, equity / executive compensation and social security.
Familiarity with mobility technology and assignment-tracking tools.
APAC and Gulf mobility-corridor experience and regional languages.
Seniority
- Manager
- Senior Manager
- Director / Associate Director
- Partner / Principal
Sectors served
- Financial services & banking
- Technology & professional services
- Energy, resources & engineering
- Consumer & industrial multinationals
- Pharmaceuticals & life sciences
- Sovereign & government-linked employers
Frequently asked
- Why has demand for mobility tax leaders risen if long-term assignments are declining?
- Because complexity per employee has gone up, not down. Work-from-anywhere, hybrid cross-border roles and executives splitting time across locations create far more taxable touchpoints than a single traditional posting, and enforcement is outpacing employers' internal tracking. That drives sustained demand for specialist advisers.
- Do you cover employment tax and executive compensation as well as expatriate tax?
- Yes. Strong mobility practices run the full offering: expatriate tax and equalisation, employment and payroll tax, executive and equity compensation, and social security. We search across all of these and for partners who can lead the combined desk.
- Which corridors matter most for APAC mobility hiring?
- Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia as regional employment hubs, and the Gulf as a destination for expatriate executives. Experience in those corridors and relevant languages are significant factors in these searches.