The average age of a financial adviser is 59. Many of those above the average are hoping to hang up their laptops and swap their brogues and ties for sandals, socks and cardigans in the not too distant. 75% of advisers are over 40 and only 8% under 30. And one other stat, of the total, just 16% are female. By contrast, over 50% of doctors are under 40, 60% of those female; with both accountants and solicitors it’s 50/50. So something has to change; and we’re doing our bit. We’re already ‘gender balanced’, and have a new under-30-year-old female trainee adviser joining us in a couple of weeks. As regular readers will know, I’ve long campaigned for socks and sandals to be banned and have never owned a cardigan, so am planning, You-Know-Who willing, to carry on for a while yet. Sorry.
“Letter of authority: Why now is the right time for change”
This may sound like a non-issue from outside the world-of-financial-advice bubble. It is the bain, however, of the daily working lives of many of us, particularly of those paid by we advisers to do the dirty work of dealing with the many providers with whom we have to work.
