Katie Brinsden, managing director of Truly Independent and a regular contributor to IFA Magazine, examines the latest FCA adviser data and asks whether a younger profession is enough to tackle the UK’s persistent advice gap, or if the industry still has a deeper capacity problem to solve.
This month’s In Focus looks at how younger advisers can build confidence, develop their skills and lay the foundations for a successful career in financial advice. We explore the practical support, guidance and experience that can help early-career advisers grow into their roles and prepare for long-term success.
A couple of years ago, writing on these pages for the first time, I discussed how the average age of an adviser spoke volumes about the enduring blight of the advice gap. At the time, according to Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) data, it was close to 60[1].
This figure underlined a long-running trend of more individuals exiting our industry than entering it. It was, I argued, an unintended consequence of the Retail Distribution Review, which persuaded many advisers to step down rather than face the ordeal of trying to earn new qualifications late in their working lives.
Well, it seems times have changed. Published in April, the latest FCA data reveals the average age of an adviser has fallen to the late 40s – a result of a 12% increase since 2021 in the number of advisers aged 39 and under[2].
Does this notable decline bode well for the future of our profession? Does it signify new hope in the battle to narrow or even close the advice gap? As with almost any data, it is possible to draw both positive and negative inferences.
The good news is that there are clearly still some people who want to be advisers. With many of those who reach the end of the road being replaced by those who are just embarking on their own journeys, the advice gap is not widening dramatically.
Yet the bad news is that the overall number of advisers is largely unchanged. It was around 31,000 two years ago, and it remains around 31,000 today. To quote Nick Hulme, head of the Advisers, Wealth and Pensions division at the FCA’s Consumer Investments Directorate: “The market is changing shape, but capacity has been maintained.”
The key problem here, of course, is that merely maintaining capacity is unlikely to condemn the advice gap to history. The power of an adviser base that is “broadly stable” – to use the FCA’s carefully couched terminology – is strictly limited. That much is a self-evident matter of logic.
Notwithstanding the success or otherwise of initiatives such as targeted support, we need to augment capacity if we want to deal with the gap in a truly meaningful way. In other words, regardless of how wonderfully youthful the adviser community becomes, this is – and always has been – a question of numbers.
From money and machines to meaning
Perhaps there are grounds for encouragement in further recent news. Also published in April, the latest BWD Financial Planner Earnings & Benefits Census report reveals advisers are getting richer. Salaries and bonuses alike are on the up[3].
It has to be said, though, that remuneration in our industry has rarely been meagre. Generally speaking, financial advisers have long been rewarded relatively handsomely. We might therefore reasonably conclude that the promise of a healthy pay packet is insufficient to attract a game-changing glut of eager newcomers to our “broadly stable” ranks.
Could it be, then, that this is an arena that is widely perceived as particularly challenging? Could it even be that this is an arena that is widely perceived as having no great future?
This brings us to the ever-thorny issue of technology. From the perspective of career prospects, at the risk of oversimplifying the picture, I believe we can frame the situation in a pretty straightforward and optimistic way.
Machines do not invariably take jobs – sometimes they just make them easier. This is still the case in the era of AI. If anything, tech should help address the advice gap by freeing advisers from the burden of “heavy lifting” and so allowing them to spend more time with more clients – most of whom continue to place enormous value on the personal touch.
So what is left? Alongside the likelihood of earning a decent wage for performing tasks that are in many cases less onerous than they were, what appeal might our profession hold for the younger generations in whose hands its long-term wellbeing inevitably rests?
Call me an idealist, but I wonder if the number of new recruits would go up – and, in tandem, the average age of an adviser would go even further down – if we all made rather more of the fact that our fundamental purpose is to improve other people’s lives.
All things considered, not least with the advice gap in mind, I feel that is an idea well worth promoting.
[1] See IFA Magazine: “Plugging the advice gap: Truly Independent’s Katie Brinsden tells us why it matters and what we can do about it”, June 19 2024
[2] See, for example, Financial Conduct Authority: Understanding the Advice Market: Financial Advice Firms Survey 2025, April 2026
[3] See, for example, BWD: BWD Financial Planner Earnings & Benefits Census 2025/26, April 2026
