Imagine this: a fast-scaling fintech secures regulatory approval to launch in three new markets.
The go-live date is tight, and the business needs to hire fast — not just legal counsel and compliance leads, but engineers to localise the platform, a product manager with regional experience, and a marketing analyst fluent in local regulation.
They’re looking to move quickly. But nothing about global hiring in regulated industries is simple.
Each role, whether technical or operational, touches regulated data, sits within controlled workflows, or brings its own set of jurisdictional constraints.
Some require market-specific licences. Others raise questions about data residency, intellectual property, or export controls. Contractor routes are off the table. And every hiring decision carries the risk of misclassification, tax exposure, or delays in regulatory approval.
This isn’t a niche problem.
It’s a daily reality for companies in financial services, cybersecurity, and legal sectors, where every hire, from senior leadership to support roles, is shaped by a complex web of regulatory, privacy and operational requirements.
It’s not getting any easier. New types of legislation are being introduced in various regions of the world every day.
A recent employment update from Eversheds gave an illustrative overview of how complex regulatory environments around the world are becoming.
- In the UAE, the Abu Dhabi Global Market has introduced new regulations covering visas, work permits, working hours, anti-discrimination protections, termination processes, and record keeping.
- In the UK, employers will soon face criminal liability if an employee commits fraud and the organisation lacks reasonable prevention procedures.
- In China, new rules have been introduced to allow greater flexibility around retirement, and courts in Shanghai have changed their approach to renewing fixed-term contracts.
- In the US, new pay transparency requirements have come into force in several additional states.
And these regulatory considerations don’t just affect the usual suspects. Many global hires can fall victim to surprising regulatory restrictions. Product teams, operations, engineering and marketing all face potential constraints when hiring across borders in tightly regulated sectors.
That growing gap - between what’s required and what teams feel equipped to manage - is fast becoming one of the biggest operational risks facing global employers. So why is hiring in regulated so difficult? And what can you do to ensure your company is well-prepared?
Why hiring in regulated industries is uniquely difficult
Hiring internationally already comes with a degree of legal and logistical complexity.
But in regulated industries, the level of scrutiny multiplies. What might be a standard remote hire in one sector becomes a high-stakes compliance event in another - not because the role is sensitive, but because the context is.
Data is the most notable example. Whether it’s legal documents, customer transactions or threat intel, many regulated industries deal with data that can’t legally cross borders.
That means even basic access permissions become compliance decisions. Can this person log into the system from this country? Should that report be viewable here? It’s not just about security, it’s about lawful processing and control.
Then there’s professional licensing. You might be hiring a financial advisor, a lawyer, or a regulated engineer. Their credentials might be perfectly valid in one country and entirely non-transferable in another. And it’s not just about permission to practise, it’s about mandatory continuing education, registration, and audit readiness.
Confidentiality adds another layer. Regulated sectors often hold intellectual property or client data that’s not just commercially sensitive, but legally protected. NDAs aren’t enough. Employment contracts need to be airtight and locally enforceable, or they won’t hold up under challenge — especially post-employment.
And underpinning all of this is documentation. Regulated employers need to be able to show how decisions were made - not just to internal audit, but to external regulators.
That means employment records, payroll history, background checks, onboarding steps. And when it comes to building your global workforce, each jurisdiction may expect something slightly different.
International employment compliance: industry-specific challenges
While the general shape of risk is similar across sectors, each industry has its own operational reality and associated regulatory weak spots.
Cybersecurity: the risk of scaling too fast
In cybersecurity, the need to scale often outruns the legal infrastructure needed to support it.
Organisations racing to meet rising threat levels might look to build around-the-clock SOC coverage, bring in cloud security experts, or hire compliance-aware engineers in sensitive markets. But fast hiring can backfire.
Clearance requirements for certain roles are not portable. Some types of security knowledge fall under export controls. And privacy regulations may limit your ability to run full background checks, even when you need them to vet someone’s access level. Global cybersecurity hiring doesn’t just need to be fast. It needs to be trusted.
Financial services: complexity from every angle
In finance, almost every hire touches compliance in some way.
A data analyst working with customer behaviour metrics may need to follow local data processing regulations. A customer success manager might need AML training. A product manager working on lending or investment features may inadvertently trigger market-specific regulatory oversight.
Add to that the obligations of individual accountability regimes — like the UK’s SMCR — and the line between HR and risk management begins to blur. Teams need to track licences, support continuing education, ensure data residency, and maintain detailed audit trails for every regulated role.
And it’s not just regulated roles that bring complexity. Even support staff, if improperly hired or misclassified, can expose the business to PE risk, tax penalties, or regulatory questions.
Legal services: the limits of portability
Law firms face a different kind of constraint. Most legal practice rights are grounded in geography. A lawyer qualified in one country can’t advise clients in another without running into practice restrictions, ethics issues, or conflicts of interest.
This has knock-on effects not just for hiring, but for global expansion. Structuring cross-border teams, setting up partner-equivalent roles, or assigning work to foreign-based professionals — all of it needs to be considered within the bounds of local legal ethics and regulation.
Confidentiality obligations may restrict remote work. Professional conduct rules may limit who can supervise or delegate. And certain jurisdictions may impose restrictions on fee-sharing, firm structure, or even the kinds of tasks that can be outsourced.
The shift to global hiring & the compliance risks they bring
As teams spread across regions, the risks don’t go away, they just become more distributed.
24/7 operations need 24/7 compliance
Many regulated industries are building follow-the-sun coverage. In finance, this means round-the-clock market monitoring. In cybersecurity, it means incident response never sleeps. But splitting workloads by region means splitting responsibilities — and compliance oversight needs to move with it.
Clear handovers, jurisdictional role mapping, and location-aware access controls all become part of workforce planning.
Hub-and-spoke teams need integrated oversight
A common model now is to centralise compliance or legal oversight in a hub, often in London, Dublin or Singapore, while letting operational teams expand across lower-cost or talent-rich markets.
This works well in theory, but only when the spokes are properly supported. Employment terms, onboarding processes and regulatory awareness all need to be adapted to local context — or the centre can’t maintain effective control.
Hybrid structures demand clearer definitions
Many teams now mix remote and on-site roles. Some staff need secure facility access. Others are hired for regional insight and may never come into an office. But in regulated industries, the structure of work affects classification, equipment provisioning, data handling, and local compliance. These choices aren’t just logistical. They’re legal.
