Estimate the fully-loaded cost of the hire.
Pick the role you would otherwise recruit. The estimate adds the 12% superannuation guarantee and typical employer on-costs to the current market base salary, because nobody costs their base alone.
Your intended hire
Base salaries: Robert Half Australia and Morgan McKinley 2026 salary guides (mid-point, base only, excluding superannuation and benefits). Fully-loaded figures add the 12% superannuation guarantee and an allowance for employer on-costs (payroll tax, workers' compensation, leave, equipment, recruitment and management overhead). Estimates are indicative and rounded; your actual cost varies with seniority, location and package.
One hire, or the whole function.
The number above buys you a single person. Here is what that person represents against RiskOps: GRC, which runs the function for you with the senior cyber judgement built in.
| Hiring a GRC manager in-house | RiskOps: GRC | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual cost | $200,000 or more fully loaded for one mid-level hire, and $330,000 or more for a CISO-grade one. | Less than the cost of a single full-time hire. |
| Cyber and CISO expertise | A governance manager is rarely a CISO, so deep cyber judgement is a second hire or a consultant on top. | Senior CISO and cyber expertise embedded and contracted in, baked into the cost rather than a separate line item. |
| Capacity and cover | One person, who takes leave, gets sick, and can only be in one place at a time. | An operating layer and a bench of senior practitioners, so there is no single point of failure. |
| Key-person risk | When they resign, the corporate memory and the current position can walk out with them. | The operation, the evidence and the position stay with you, kept current whoever is on the team. |
| The platform | You still have to select, license and run a GRC platform on top of the salary. | The platform is licensed in your name and operated for you, with no lock-in. |
| Board reporting | Produced when there is capacity, often in a pre-audit scramble. | A board-ready, provable position kept current on any ordinary day. |
See the real numbers for your organisation.
The calculator gives you the shape of it. In a short briefing we will build you a specific business case, sized to your headcount, your sector and the obligations you carry, whether that is CPS 230, SOCI and AESCSF, Essential Eight or ISO 27001, and set it against the cost of hiring.