The number of investment advisers working in the UK has experienced a surprising bounce after the introduction of the retail distribution review (RDR), a report commissioned by the Financial Conduct Authority has shown.
The survey by RS consulting, commissioned by the FCA’s predecessor the Financial Services Authority, showed the total number of advisers had grown from 31,000 in December 2012 to just over 32,000 in April 2013, a 5% rise.
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In fact, discretionary investment managers saw their numbers climb the most by 24% to 1,784 individuals in the industry.
Expectations had been that the RDR would lead to a loss of talent across the industry as new professional standards were introduced and unqualified staff were forced to leave.
The survey has shown, however, that advisers have quickly adapted to the new standards with 97% reaching the newly required qualifications by April 2013.
The remaining 3% were considered by the FCA to still be on track to reach the required level introduced by the RDR regulations.
Discretionary investment managers were above this average however with only 1.8% of the advisers only part qualified and 98.2% fully qualified.
In addition, the numbers of retail investment advisers surveyed who declared that they were looking to leave the industry decreased from 8% in 2011 of those surveyed to just 6% by 2013.
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By GlobalDataIn 2012 only 2% of respondents at wealth management firms fell into this ‘early leaver’ category.
