In support of International Women’s Day, Dynamic Planner, the UK’s leading risk based financial planning system, has conducted further analysis of findings from its Spotlight Report to paint a picture of women today in the advice industry.
Age Breakdown of Respondents of Spotlight Report
While the number of men increases with age it is the opposite for women, as the number of women, as a trend, decreases with every subsequent age group with the highest share of women (just over one in five) stating that they were under 30. The median ages for men is between 50-54 while median age for women is much lower at 40-44 showing a skew towards women being much younger with more than half being under the age of 44. Even though the number of female respondents was only 112 (30%), nearly an identical number of men and women indicated that they were under the age of 30, which equated to just over one in ten of male respondents and just over a fifth of female respondents.
Business Success
Female respondents are increasingly successful. In 2021, almost 1 in 2 said they serviced less than 100 clients on an ongoing basis, however in 2022, that decreased dramatically to just under 1 in 5. In 2022, just over half of women increased the number of advisers in their firm versus 42% of men. Women are also pushing the efficiencies of their roles – in 2021, 16% of female respondents said they serviced over 200 clients, whereas in 2022 that number more than doubled to 35%.
Roles
When it comes to roles within a firm, just three in 10 women work in an advising capacity versus a majority (77%) of men. A large proportion of women (58%) work as paraplanners or admin staff. For men this number is less than a fifth. On the whole, women are incredibly happy within their role as either an adviser, paraplanner or support staff, with 88% saying they would recommend their profession as a career.
Yasmina Siadatan, Sales and Marketing Director at Dynamic Planner said: “We are proud to support International Women’s Day and its theme for this year #EmbraceEquity. While the industry is moving in the right direction, this annual event gives everyone time to pause and reflect. Around the world women are forging change and this is borne out in our own research of the advice community – women are buoyant, bullish and paint a picture of their own success. More importantly they love their job and their clients will only benefit from such positive feeling.
“What’s really fascinating is the number of women across all age groups, with the largest number aged under 30 and how this will play out with the contrasting population of older males. Time will tell if there will be a levelling out of adviser numbers across the two groups, which could also be driven by more female investors seeking financial advice. As a company which inherently believes in equity and continually demonstrates this to our own team, we are also committed to helping the financial advice community to appeal to more women whether as potential employees or clients. If the industry can pave the way to a more equal working world, then we must level the playing field for investing too.”
Dynamic Planner supports #EmbraceEquity for International Women’s Day and beyond.
