Opportunities and challenges for advisers in 2026

0:12Hello and welcome to the FT Advisor podcast. Each week, we will be joined by guests from the financial services world to discuss the most pressing industry issues. I'm Amy Austin, News Editor at FT Advisor, and today I will be discussing what this year could bring for advisors and why now is a great time to join the profession, with Sean Standwick, Director and Chartered Financial Planner at MLP Wealth, and Toby Bentley, Director at Bentley Wealth Partners. Well, thank you both for joining us today. Sean, maybe we can kick off with you. do you think this year is going to be a good year for advisors?

0:50Yeah, hi. So absolutely, I think that there's just a huge opportunity for advisors. You know, what I'm seeing with clients, what I'm seeing in general in the environment, you know, there's more worry than ever about tax, about where should we invest? What should I do? My expenses? We saw in the budget, didn't we? these, you know, what was it, 26 billion in tax increases. The OBR have said that it's the biggest tax burden, you know, for I think since World War II. This leads to a lot of worry. Whilst we've had things like inflation come up, we've had the therefore cost of living and interest rates are a bit higher than they've been in recent years.

1:36So all of this leads to more uncertainty. and whilst that's not a great thing in life for an advisor, it means we can add a lot more value. So yeah, I definitely think there's just a massive opportunity. We also know that, and we'll probably come on to some of this, that the average age of an advisor is quite a bit older. So again, there's just this really high demand for advice, yet at the same time, there's not necessarily that many advisors around. So if you're in the industry, then absolutely, you know, it's just such a great opportunity. And with changes and things like legislation, you know, even things like the pensions are going to come into this state in a few years.

2:19This, again, just provides more opportunity for us to add value, really. Yeah. And Toby, do you think that, you know, with with these budgets and with, you know, the rumours that seem to come with them, which is seems to be a kind of a normal thing nowadays, to be quite honest with you, that will be, you know, know we get these things that oh tax-free cash is going to be touched and it never ever is but do you think kind of with these floating around that it is good to be an advisor and this kind of helps you talk to clients and not open up a conversation yeah hi i mean yeah a lot of the points sean mentioned i completely agree with i think uncertainty is a is a word that yeah like you say in a personal lives is obviously not what you want to hear but from a professional point of view.

3:02Uncertainty tends to lead to more people wanting to seek out professional expertise, which is exactly what modern advisors are. I think a lot of common themes from the last couple of years, as well as legislation change, geopolitical risk and economic changes, and there's so much going on in the world that we seem to be seeing every single day when you go on your phone. It all just adds into more uncertainty and people looking for expertise. And, yeah, so many opportunities for advisors to be able to help people from that perspective. I think there's positive opportunities out there, particularly as well with new technologies and businesses who want to scale and grow and do that in cost effective ways, which I'm sure we'll touch on more.

3:48but does also create some sort of risks as well. So, you know, if you're a younger advisor wanting to get into the industry, knowing what you want to do, how to train with these new technologies, I'd say it's more important than ever to kind of understand how to give advice in a way that isn't just relying on technology. So there's, yeah, opportunities and a few sort of challenges. Yeah. Why would you say that now is maybe a good time for, you know, young people to start looking at becoming an advisor. I mean, I do my figures every single year. I send FIIs to the FCA and ask for advisor ages. And the latest request is in.

4:28So hopefully I will be having the new numbers next month. So watch this space, everyone. But Sean, why do you think, you know, now is the time, seeing as there aren't that many young advisors around compared to older advisors? Yeah, so I touched upon it before, didn't I? I mean, yeah, I'll be really keen to hear those new figures. But, you know, the sort of numbers that I've seen around, around 58, 59, the average age of an advisor that, you know, a couple of years ago, Investec came out researching 50 % of advisors plan to retire in the next, I think it was five years, actually. The point is, is that, you know, there are going to be fewer around.

5:06And that presents, again, another opportunity. So, you know, we're in a place where, as we said, there is a need more than ever for advice, yet the numbers are going down. And like any market, if you've got the demand, then you're winning, right? So the demand is absolutely there. You know, we advise the numbers, I think, are still below pre-RDR as well, but they seem to generally be coming down. So yeah, the demand for advice is rising, definitely not falling. And at the same time, it's great to have young people around. They have a different energy, they have a different way of thinking. You know, we have a placement here and he makes me feel pretty old.

5:58You know, just the way his brain works, he's our AI champion, he's testing things and just the way they work is different. And in a business, it's about having a team, isn't it? Really, that's what a business is. It's a group of people sort of bound together by a culture. And what you don't want is too many people that are doing exactly the same thing, right? You need that spectrum. And so for young people, yeah, I just wish more people knew that it was a career and what a great career it is. Yeah, I think that's the problem with it. You know, as you say, young people do bring something new. You know, they are very much the users of AI and, you know, and they are the digital age.

6:42But Toby, do you think that the way they, you know, they are different means that we're kind of not attracting them in the right way? Like, do we have to kind of maybe step out more and get these young people to actually want to become an advisor and actually firstly know what an advisor is? Yeah, definitely. I mean, education about what the role is, is the starting point. But yeah, it's such a unique situation. This generation of young advisors in such a unique position because it's kind of like any sort of generational defining technological change like AI is. There's a whole generation before AI who, you know, let's be honest, there's going to be older clients who are skeptical.

7:24They don't trust the technology and maybe never will. and then there's going to be a whole generation growing up now who only know AI and are going to just assume it's integrated into their finances and this kind of younger generation of advisors now, they're sort of that perfect bridge of people who are able to deal with clients who may be a skeptical clients who may be completely, you know, rely on AI. It's really, really again, back to Sean's point, really unique opportunity for younger advisors who are in that super unique situation of being able to sort of the people who know life before and after ai and there's not going to be loads of them so it's quite it's quite interesting if you're if you're that age group now but yeah completely understanding what advice is and how it works and what your career progression can look like it's all stuff that as an industry we need to be doing need to be doing more to sort of champion yeah and i think maybe it will get easier like i have kind of noticed that the younger kind of people out there they they do tend to be more interested about investing and like what's going on with their money I don't know if it's you know with all the tv shows you know like we've got Martin Lewis you know on primetime tv now um maybe and just the kind of economy we're in people thinking about it more but Sean I don't know do you think that will kind of maybe help the advice profession that people actually are thinking about money more and how to kind of you know make themselves better in later life yeah I think there's a real issue actually with financial education, especially in our country.

8:52I can't speak too much about other countries, but it's, you know, we go to school and we learn very little about, well, nothing really about financial education. And if, you know, I could create a curriculum from zero, not that I'm an education, you know, expert, but I would have how to manage your finances in there, right? We need a few things like how to eat be healthy but one of the main ones is um is how to manage your finances and so yeah look there's a lot of noise out there isn't there i think that's one of the points and something toby mentioned earlier and his first points were you know we hear a lot of news and we're ironically in a time when there's never been more information yet it's more confusing than ever and you know back in the day people just wouldn't have known much about investing at all they would have just you know gone into something very simple that also means the markets are more complex right there are more people trading in there there's more volatility so um yeah i think that there's more than ever um you know a need for for education and financial education really yeah toby i didn't know if you had anything to add there yeah i mean similar similar point i think that that some times change but some problems never never do and and to sean's point is exactly that that you know 20 years ago maybe there was not there was no information out there it was really hard to understand finances because it's like how do you get that information and it was go to an advisor now it's sort of same problem but opposite challenge that there's so much information and it's you know you go to someone who's got professional expertise in order to kind of filter out that noise i think it's interesting you mentioned amy sort of social media and you know modern pop culture films and you know we've all seen films with really uh exaggerated examples of people investing in stock market activity and i think there's a really hard younger people now you can download an app and you can be trading in five minutes so there's there's a really high emphasis on on that part of their finances investing and that sort of stuff and and probably less so on the more general lifestyle planning and the holistic side of things so it'd be quite interesting to to know if you spoke to younger investors now how much they know about the more general planning side the taxes and all that sort of stuff rather than just you know what can i invest in the S &P and see how well it goes.

11:22I just had a point here. I think, you know, it's an age-old thing, you know. Us humans have always wanted a quick get-rich scheme, right? And in a world, again, where you're talking about social media, things popping up on your phone, you're getting these dopamine. Oh, I can make money here and I can do this and I can get into this. I think that fuels part of that. And then also it can be quite, obviously, we know, dangerous because then people put money into things that they don't understand, that they've done no research on, and they end up losing money. So, yeah, again, it's that whole thing of there's so much information.

12:01And, yeah, people may be interested, but it's not an easy world. But it's an age-old human interest to try and increase your wealth, right? Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing. I think we're obviously leading into the next thing. we are going to be having targeted support and simplified advice now coming through this year, hopefully, which may help younger people more, depending on how it works and, you know, what we see happening. Sean, like, do you think this is actually going to be beneficial to people? And more importantly, for you guys, the advice profession, do you think maybe it will, you know, encourage people to actually seek out, like, actual full advice after they've had target support if it's kind of applicable to them yeah so I think the intent is right we know we've got this advice gap and again it's relevant to bring up RDR here because when that came in 2013 whilst I was in the industry then I'm in a family business I know sort of what happened there and pre that you know my father for example used to go out years and years ago and sell savings products and i then spoke to these people years later and they would have you know 50 000 pounds 100 000 pounds they barely put anything in and whilst there were you know there was problems and it's great to see now we're a profession and commission obviously can lead to problems about biases.

13:32There was nothing done to then address the mass market. And this is where we've led to this problem. So to be an advisor now is so expensive. So, you know, we have to pay more and more fees and everything else we have to do. And therefore, the barriers to entry have gone up and up. We've done it ourselves. Our minimum investment criteria have gone up. And we've also got this problem of, as an advisor, aging crime banks, the wealth tends to sit with the baby boomers, right? And we know there's going to be a wealth transfer. I think it's projected to be something in the region of five to seven trillion over the next few decades.

14:15So engaging these people early is really important, not only because there's a gap, because they need the advice, but also as advisors we need to think how can we engage these people to future proof our profession our firms and what you need to do is ensure that everyone in the chain is incentivized and it works for all them so clearly it's got to work for the end consumer it's got to work for any provider who sits in the middle and it's got to be profitable for the advisor so if any of those three in the chain are not profitable and not doing well, then it breaks down. So I think at the moment, for me, it's a little bit early to know what this really means.

15:02Of course, we're so heavily regulated, we're all a bit worried. What I'd really like to see is more clarification on if you take someone on and you can charge different fee structures and have a lighter touch and, for example, not review them every year, whatever it is, but give us more flexibility. Because I think what the problem is at the moment is, because I know not a lot of people have signed up for the targeted support, is what does it really mean and will the regulator come back in the future and decide, actually, you should have done this. And so I think the intent is fantastic. I'm hoping this is going to move us towards plugging the gap, but I think it's going to need refining.

15:51Yeah, I think, as you say, there hasn't been a lot of kind of people sign up, but I think because where it's so new, I think maybe a lot of people are sitting back and going to watch what happens first and, you know, I think probably let the big providers lead and then follow suit. Toby, I don't know what you think about targeted support and what your opinions are of it. Yeah, I'm probably in that boat of wait and see. It's one of those ones where I'd be really interested to know how it plays out because the general principle of wanting to give more people advice and close that advice gap of maybe clients with smaller amounts of asset and all that sort of stuff, the principle is correct.

16:30But how do you do that in a way that works for advice firms, clients, everybody? I guess my worry is if you're a client who an advice firm segments into one of their sort of, I guess, ready-made packaged advice propositions. What's the difference between that and sort of doing it yourself on one of these modern, you go on your Vanguards or your AJ Bells or one of these ready-to-use consumer platforms? And then do people end up doing it themselves, kind of getting stuck on these platforms, end up just focusing on contributing their ISA allowance every year and never really taking advice outside of that because they're sort of stuck in that you know not really receiving advice no man's land and then never transition to taking better advice in the future so yeah yeah I don't know I'm interested to see how it plays out I don't know yet uh how easy it will be to encourage people to move on to more advanced advice in the future yeah I think it is definitely a let's see what happens here because you know it might it might work and it might get a lot more people you know kind of educated but at the same time it might make people frustrated when they're like well no I want this answer specifically for me and they're not going to get that I think people don't quite realize that but we shall see and kind of looking more into advice firms you know with tech coming down the line Sean what does what would you say a culture looks like kind of in a modern advice business right now it's specifically in regards to tech or just generally culture generally as well yeah yeah look culture isn't a nice to have anymore so it's not enough to just offer someone a job it's something i obsess over um you know you want to this is something i talk about and we talk about lot we spend more time with the people we work with than our best friends our wives husbands whoever partners children and we want to enjoy that time so having a great culture in terms of making it a fun place to work enjoyable but of course you know we do have high standards we are a profession if you want to be a successful firm you've got to have high standards so So, you know, just doing things like making people feel valued, you know, think about career development.

19:06People want purpose. They want the support. They want to feel valued. You know, just even things like just pay people what they're worth. You know, don't try and get away with what you can pay and offering, you know, some extra benefits. I think when you and just having that human connection. Right. I'm just relating it to what we do. But I see, because we've worked so hard on the culture, that as I have better relationships with people within the business, they really understand me and I understand them. And they know my intent is good. So they feel very open. Like if someone's not seemingly in a good mood, just asking genuinely, are they okay?

19:52and trying to get to the bottom and trying to help people out because then you know you get each other's trust you do get on and then you work that much better together so yeah i think in a in a modern firm you you just really need to look after people you need to offer the support the growth opportunity um you know and with that also you're talking about clients you know well maybe we'll come on to this is it's so important again this human connection element offering the clients of real experience and again with the whole ai thing that's even more important so you know we look we've got a list of values we've got six but a culture sometimes people think culture are the values that you write down and that's not what it is it's actually how you act every day it's how you as leaders act you're setting the example it's how you act when there's a problem it's how you celebrate something positive or even just a birthday or someone doing a great job we had yesterday a client feedback you know they're in an unfortunate position where where they've got cancer and they need to sort out their it's actually a family friend they're not a client but they needed to sort wills and lpas out so they sent a lovely message to our family and i forwarded it onto the team you know and they just said they gave the feedback to the whole team so these kind of things like celebrating that giving people the praise where it's due is what people are really looking for I think so yeah and just constantly adjusting this culture as well and looking at what are we doing how can we improve it and having regular touch points and conversations with your staff yeah yeah I think a lot of the time us as humans we always just tend to focus on the bad but I think you know highlighting the good really does make such a difference um and Toby with you know we are changing the way we work you know there is more a lot more working from home how do you kind of manage culture when you know you have people maybe like spread out but Covid's fundamentally changed the balance of power in offices didn't it from you know culture as Sean Riley said is it's no longer you know just like a nice nice sort of slogan to have people now expect to enjoy where they work they expect to be treated well they expect to be compensated well and have good kind of career goals it's not uh you know i think there's definitely people working from home and and being open in their eyes to other working environments has definitely made people really sort of understand that actually you as an employee have more more power than previous generations probably thought and therefore you're exactly right culture is uh it's it's become such an integral part of why people work at certain places um i think you know when it's when people spread out when people are working from home whatever it might be as long as you've got your company values and and you know always doing it sort of sounds cliche but you know if you're always doing the right things by your clients by your staff it's going to breed culture culture breeds whether you know wherever you are whether it's remote, whether you're at home, positive culture is always going to breed.

23:06Negative culture is always breed. You know, people have, we've all worked in places where people can be negatively impacted by certain individuals or certain, you know, managers, whatever it might be. I think, yeah, to Sean's point, you know, there's a great quote somewhere, I'll probably get it wrong, but it's, you know, you spend more, a bad manager has more impact on your life than your therapist or something. So it's so true. These people have such a big impact on your lives and yeah, positive and negative cultures really do breed and if you're you know setting your stall out at the half of your proposition putting client outcomes first and putting your staff first and all that sort of stuff it's going to it's going to breed in a positive way because ultimately if people feel empowered to do their jobs if clients really feel like they're empowered to you know live their lives and grow their finances it's yeah everything comes back from that so it's sort of it just breeds organically yeah and sean how is kind of AI may be changing this culture just like also along like inside advice but also with clients you know are people worried about it or are people kind of now embracing that AI is the future and it will be used yeah we don't with our clients really have those conversations about AI well we do we do mention it and I've never had any kind of concern raised with the clients How it changes the culture is, again, is this human connection, right?

24:29So Toby mentioned earlier, you can go online and do it. You can do that already, even without AI. But as AI advances, and it will rapidly advance, right, it's more and more important that you have these connections with your clients, with your staff as well. So, you know, just things like, I mean, we are in our office culture. We, you know, try and get our clients into the office and make it a real experience. So as soon as you walk in, you get a lovely office, the next bank, but you get a really warm welcome. You get a little menu to choose your drink. We have a special coffee machine. We've got a whole list of drinks, you know, all of these things.

25:14We have nice music. and so you get the whole experience of coming in and feeling very special and then it also gives you that security now it wouldn't be enough just to have a nice cup of coffee would it we need to at the heart of everything we do offer top advice and that's the most important thing at the end of the day but if we can do it in such a way where people leave and they are happy about paying us a fee, you know it's working. And we've had some of that feedback. We have people, you know, buy presents for staff members and things like that. And so I think in an age of AI, it's about embracing it.

25:57It's about using it. But it's also about, but then also it can save time. So it allows you to focus on these other things. And look, we're not going to be for everyone. You're always going to have the people that want to do it themselves and that's absolutely fine but you know I sit down with people and I see how they're worried I sat down with a lady yesterday about inheritance tax her father and her father is also worried about it she doesn't understand you know she doesn't know what business relief is she doesn't understand the figures I sat down I explained it to her and she said, oh, I feel so much better.

26:35That's something that you can't really get necessarily from AI because, yes, it may give you some form of reassurance, even if the advice was good, which is not always, by the way, but it won't give you that whole experience and that feeling. And again, where we're talking about social media, where we're talking about so much noise and about working from home COVID, there is a lack of community, I think, in the world and human connection. And that's why it's even more important. So both with the client, but also your staff members as well. Yeah. And Toby, do you think that, you know, face-to-face is here to stay?

27:19Oh, 100%. I mean, it's funny to think, I mean, pre-COVID, every meeting we ever did was face-to-face, or me personally anyway, it was every single meeting. and now obviously there's a big shift towards video calls and all that sort of stuff. I think with all of this, whether you're meeting face-to-face, how you integrate AI in your business, whatever it might be, I think the biggest opportunity and challenge is around authenticity and that's as you as your brand, your company, how you give advice, you as an advisor, how you work with your team. AI is going to be amazing in fundamentally changing how we do our processes you know how we write reports how we do our note taking all this sort of stuff that's great what you then have to then balance that out with is also again giving authentic advice that's come from you to your clients in a way that suits them as a person so it's like balancing that um balance balancing the the the two sort of process that the help you can get from a process perspective whilst also giving authentic advice and not losing it's very very easy to rely on new technology more and more and more and suddenly you lose what's at the heart of who you as a business and a brand are so I think you know you can even see it it's even small things loud people's marketing it's you just go on social media and it's just the em dash is everywhere you just see it's this ai ai galore and actually trying to find that authentic voice within using technology it's going to be the biggest opportunity I think and just to quickly round up and finish um sean what's the one thing you want to see for the advice profession going into this year i'd say more opportunity for people to in the profession and also young people to get into the profession and more employed jobs i know it's is a profession it's much more employed than ever but and and again just more people knowing it's a career uh and and this is you know and and again I think this again is massively improved, more trust in advisors as well.

29:22But yeah, they're the things I would like to see. And Toby, what about you? I think mine's probably on the authenticity point. It's, you know, every advice firm does things slightly differently. They deal with different types of clients and that's okay. And it's great to celebrate that and sort of talk about how you work with people and who you work with and why you're different to other people in a way that's really authentic. And I think what I'm nervous about is over time, as bigger companies consolidate smaller companies, we end up with just, you know, potentially a handful of advice firms all using the same tech.

29:53It's just going to become a really, if we're not careful, generic landscape. So people staying authentic and being able to give advice in a way that's really kind of true to them and how they want to work with clients. I think that would be my biggest focus for 2026. Brilliant. Well, thank you both for joining us today. Really appreciate it. and everyone else tune in next week where we will be discussing other goings on in the industry. Thank you.