The advice gap has been a persistent concern for the profession, but are adviser numbers really the problem? Cara Robinson, Training & Competency Supervisor at Truly Independent, examines what the latest FCA data reveals about the industry’s capacity and ambitions.
The origins of the phrase “lies, damned lies and statistics” are fiercely contested and seemingly lost in the mists of time. Whoever came up with it, though, you have to admit the notion still holds true today.
As I understand it, the point isn’t that statistics just can’t be trusted. Rather, it’s that they’re agreeably malleable – which is to say they can be used to support all sorts of arguments, often including both sides of the same debate.
Take recent data revealing a notable shift in adviser demographics. According to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the average age of an adviser in the UK is now in the late 40s[1].
The FCA reports that the number of advisers aged 39 and under has gone up by 12% since 2021. This suggests there are still people who want to be part of our industry and we’re not necessarily facing a situation in which thousands of advisers are retiring and precious few newcomers are filling the void.
At a push, we could even interpret these figures as evidence that the advice gap is finally narrowing. Yet the very same data also presents a far less optimistic picture.
The total number of advisers two years ago was around 31,000, says the FCA, whereas the total today is… wait for it… around 31,000. In other words, we might infer that the advice gap isn’t narrowing – and that the noble goal of advice for everybody is as distant as ever.
From superabundance to stasis
The FCA frames this backdrop commendably neatly. The descriptive term of choice is “broadly stable”. To quote Nick Hulme, head of the regulator’s Advisers, Wealth and Pensions division: “The market is changing shape, but capacity has been maintained.”
Once again, depending on mindset and preference, we might discern positives and negatives alike. To appreciate why, we first need to revisit how we arrived at the “broadly stable” paradigm.
Some years ago, when the requirements of the job were rather less exacting than they are now, there were more than 200,000 “advisers” in the UK. The quotation marks are vital here, because the definition is decidedly loose.
Many of these individuals operated as “independent insurance brokers”. Some brought little or no relevant expertise to the task, although it’s right to say they weren’t obliged to in any event. It was an era in which financial advice earned a reputation that was less than stellar.
On the one hand, nobody could sincerely yearn for a return to those days. There would be no merit in narrowing the advice gap if the only means of doing so were to ditch the rigorous standards introduced more than a decade ago by the Retail Distribution Review (RDR). After all, bad advice is frequently more injurious than no advice.
On the other hand, we have to accept this amounts to a striking lack of progress – at least in relation to the size of the workforce. It represents a perpetuation of a status quo that has long been acknowledged as inadequate.
Do advisers really care about the advice gap?
It’s important to concede at this point that wider efforts to narrow the advice gap are ongoing. Perhaps most obviously, they include targeted support – a much-trumpeted initiative whose success or otherwise should become clearer over time.
Yet this remains a numbers game at heart. If the objective is to provide a greater proportion of the population with what might strictly be described as advice – as opposed to “guidance”, “bespoke suggestions” or any other deftly delineated alternative – then the basic fact of the matter is that we desperately need many more advisers.
When all is said and done, maybe the key question is this: why isn’t there a glut of wanna-be advisers out there? It could be that the demands imposed by the RDR are viewed as too tough; that the pay isn’t deemed sufficiently attractive; or that the march of technology is regarded as an existential threat.
But I’m not especially convinced by any of these potential explanations. Officially recognised competence is far from an insurmountable barrier to entry; most advisers earn a good wage; and tech, used correctly, should actually make our working lives easier.
I wonder if the truth lies instead in an underlying belief that the services our industry provides are the preserve of those who are already financially secure. If this is so then the noble goal of advice for everybody is essentially a myth – and, by extension, so is the advice gap.
To put it another way: ultimately, might this be a pretty straightforward case of supply and demand? Is the adviser community “broadly stable” because it has no particular desire to expand its client base? It’s an uncomfortable thought – one that reflects unhappily on a profession whose fundamental purpose should be to help improve as many lives as possible.
[1] See, for example, Financial Conduct Authority: Understanding the Advice Market: Financial Advice Firms Survey 2025, April 2026 – https://www.fca.org.uk/data/understanding-financial-advice-market.
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