Paraplanners: lang cat’s State of The Advice Nation needs you!

November 27, 2025

We’re amidst Wave 8 of the State of the Advice Nation (SOTAN) surveying at the lang cat. Every year, we take the temperature of the Advice industry – tracking its progress, exploring new questions, and building on previous insights. Think of it as a “State of the Nation” report, but focused entirely on Advice.

For the past two years, we’ve specifically canvassed the views of an area of advice that has felt unloved: paraplanning. Paraplanners are a core part of the processes of an advice firm, but despite this, many feel their role isn’t respected. Our results in Wave 7 highlighted that year-on-year, this was a consistent feeling amongst those in the profession, with 38% feeling there’s a net negative regard across the sector. Even worse, one in five felt they’re held in poor regard with the upper echelons of the advice profession, which was a 5-percentage point rise from Wave 6.

We believe that paraplanners not only play an important role in the industry, but their position in the sector and gives them an important voice in contemporary issues. It’s why we want paraplanners to feel like SOTAN is a place where they’re respected and can be heard – it gives us a richer picture of what’s going on.

With this in my mind, I thought I’d do a refresh of what we covered last year and indicate what we’re looking into this year.

Ghosts of paraplanning past

Being the second year of our dedicated State of the Paraplanning Nation section last year, it gave us a chance to draw on more trends. Some interesting insights were:

Paraplanners feel their job is impeded by sub-standard provider admin: Multiple respondents noted slow response times, wrong information supplied, lack of understanding of their role, antiquated systems and more.
Twice as many paraplanners to remain in paraplanning: It’s assumed paraplanners move up into advice, but over half (51%) indicated they want to progress in paraplanning. Just under a quarter expect to move to planning/advice.
Most paraplanners view AI as a role enabler: Some may have thought that the nature of the role would make it susceptible to AI replacement anxiety. But nearly half reckon it’ll enhance operations. A further 39% indicated they were on the fence.
Paraplanners and firms mostly agree about the vital skills paraplanners bring to the firm: Just under two-thirds (62%) of paraplanners believe their role is poorly defined within the sector to some degree. Despite this, both paraplanners and business owners are largely in step when highlighting the importance of the skills paraplanning brings to firms.
Paraplanners play a crucial role in firm operations: Paraplanners feel they’re critical in advice operations such as suitability report construction and cash flow modelling. The story is more mixed when it comes to CIPs and CRPs, though a few highlighted that they are fully involved in construction.
Paraplanners feel a lack of love: 75% maintain their pay is unfair and feel they aren’t sharing in the overall firm’s successes. Over 50% suggested they’re often left in the shadows – indicating a desire to be more client-facing.

Ghosts of paraplanning present

Part of what drives SOTAN over each wave is not just enriching the data we already have with the same voices; it’s vital that we always think of new areas to delve into and increase the range of responses from across the industry.

This applies to our paraplanning section too. It will be interesting to see how the dial shifts in areas such as AI adoption in paraplanning. In Wave 8, we will attempt to collect further information about when and how AI is materialising in the life of paraplanners.

In Wave 7, a significant amount of paraplanners said they’d like to progress their career within paraplanning. In Wave 8, we’re investigating confidence levels and achieving career goals. Moreover, we’re looking at how the group feels about training and how they can be supported within the profession.

We need you

A call to all paraplanners, if you will. If you think these issues matter to you, then we would love to hear from you. Newer and older voices go towards ensuring we can highlight the importance of paraplanners to the sector and create a platform for them to help shape it. And as a thank you for participating, you get a full set of the results, which are usually only available via subscription. To take part, visit Home – The Lang Cat before Friday, 5^th December.

Steve Nelson, Insight Director, the lang cat