Me again siblings, sorry about that, and as the Heatwave of Glory limps off into the Declining Pressure Ridge of Ennui, or something like that, I note that the Water of Leith jakeys have put their Taps back Oan. I’m not tuned in enough to the eternal mysteries of the cosmos to understand fully what this jakey act means, but if it’s not connected to the celestial appearance of Comet 3i/atlas then I for one will be very surprised. Could it be that one of Said Jakeys is actually a mining expert on his uppers, who will soon be required to straddle one of Space Karen’s thrusters and ride it deep into the black heart of 3i/atlas, wearing only a Sellick fitba tap and carrying a quarter bottle of Buckie in order to save us all while his curiously long-fingered and estranged daughter sticks her hand on a flickering monitor screen and Steven Tyler limbers up? I think we should be told. 

Barometric pressure is not the only thing declining; it turns out that the number of advice firms and registered individuals is too (now THAT’s a pivot). This is according to those loveable scamps at Begbies Traynor Group, who didn’t want to wait for the annual advice market stats from the FCA and had at them with a Freedom of Information request.  
You can read the release at the link above, and it was also covered here and here, but I’ll repeat just a couple of stats because – assuming the data bod at the FCA wasn’t on the Buckfast – they’re a bit of a moustache-twirler. 

All of these go from Q1 2022 to Q3 2025, which is impressive given the quarter isn’t over yet, but still. Let’s assume they just go from the first day of the quarter and say no more about it. 

The number of firms is down over 15% from 6,283 to 5,304. That’s a trend we’re used to, as consolidation does its thing. I haven’t been able to play with the stats for obvious reasons, but in past FCA returns we’ve been able to see that the change isn’t all one way, as what we call ‘refragmentation’ and others call ‘breakaway advice’ starts to be a thing. I’ve got a feeling that’s still going on. But it’s still quite a drop. 

BTG is silent on the total number of advisers; I suspect it isn’t changing all that much. Roughly the same number of advisers retire, change career or die each year absent very large changes like RDR, and I don’t think 2024 / 25 will have any huge surprises there. But what is less fun is that the arterial flow of younger advisers coming to pick up after all us old farts is looking more like a furred up trickle than a healthy torrent.  

Get this – there are only 196 advisers under 25 years of age. There were considerably more people at the Fringe show I was at the other day than that. In fact there are considerably more people than that sharing any given 3-bedroom flat in Edinburgh during the Festival.  

Now, this is also not a new trend and the figures were also awful in Q1 2022 – only 219 presented themselves in their fresh-faced glory at that point. But 196? For all the UK? That’s quite something. And before anyone says it, yes I know people probably enter the sector closer to 25 than 20, and most of them will have ascended into the next age bracket. But we’re not getting the pipeline right. 

And it’s not even brilliant news for the mid-to-lateish career cohort (hi!). Fortysomething adviser numbers fell just over 5% to 8,762, and cough-cough-ty-somethings (hi!) fell nearly 10% to 11,348.  

But never mind, because the over-60 cohort grew handily (I love ‘handily’ as an adverb; it can mean whatever you want) by nearly 12% since Q1 2022. BTG doesn’t give the total because reasons, but it’s more than 7,000.  

Regular readers will know I’ve been banging on about our event in Glasgow next month – HomeGame 5: New Blood is about exactly this issue. What is blowing my mind is that we’ll have something in the region of 130 young people who might be tempted to come and join your profession there; and that’s (does arithmetic) two-thirds of THE ENTIRE COHORT of under-25 advisers. If we do it again in London, which we will, then we could more than double the cohort if we can find the attendees jobs which will get them authorised. Maybe we should have a crack at that. 

I know we have a problem in this sector. I just didn’t twig the numbers were that pronounced, that’s all.  

Watch out for comets; another cat will Update you next week as I am gallivanting around.

Mark