Higher education and research sector superannuation fund UniSuper has begun the search for staff to fill senior positions in its financial planning service, which is set to be launched later this year.

"We're currently hiring for the most senior roles in the business, but we will also start looking around for some key operations roles as well as for leadership roles in the regional financial planning offices," UniSuper executive manager of financial planning Chris Davies said.

Davies said the industry fund would look to fill the roles internally first and then open the positions to the wider industry.

"We also have a number of people internally who we are training to fill the roles," he said.

UniSuper also plans to look for bigger offices in Sydney and Brisbane to accommodate the growing financial planning team.

"We're looking at this at the present time," Davies said.

Davies, a former BT head of advice, was appointed in April this year. He is responsible for the national planning business and the national phone-based financial assessment centre.

UniSuper currently has arrangements with three national planning groups - Industry Fund Financial Planning, Hillross Financial Services and Monitor Money - but will move away from these alliances when the financial planning service is launched.

At this point no plans exist to offer services to non-UniSuper members.

"This will be like a boutique dealer group dedicated to the members of UniSuper. My brief is purely UniSuper, although close family members may be able to receive some advice," Davies said.