I’m not sure why this should be a surprise to anyone. Yes, economic realities mean that advisers must, effectively focus on those who already have money, rather than those building, or hoping to build their savings. Although to clients, it may often look as though once we’ve set them up, we just pop up once a year for a quick chat, there is, for better or worse a lot more to it than that. We have to get that setting up right, whether it’s starting to save a few £00s or investing £100,000, a similar number of boxes have to be ticked, reports written and annual reviews offered or carried out. It costs money, we have to charge accordingly and so it’s generally younger members of families already with an adviser whom it’s cost-effective to help. Others are more often than not pointed in a hopefully-right DIY direction and many, thankfully, come back to us later on when there’s more that we can help with. In the good-old bad-old days of commission, Men from the Pru and Allied Dunbar, those start-out clients were valued. They paid accordingly, through the pensions or savings plans they took out or were sold; but many, many years later, are still clients of ours and others, and it’s their children who now need the extra help. What goes around…
“Worry for profession as young adviser numbers plummet”
There are around 31,000 advisers currently authorised by the FCA to give advice. Of these only around 6% are under 30 and 84% of all advisers are male. There are 209,000 solicitors, 7,000 young ones enter the profession each year and 52% of all solicitors are now female.
