Financial Advisor Salary 2023

Our Financial Advisor Salary 2023 blog is finally here and it should give you plenty to think about if you’re considering your options this year. We’ve been recruiting Financial Advisors for the past 7 years and we wanted to share with you the difference in packages when it comes to being Employed vs Self Employed and the difference in earning potential.

Self Employed Financial Advisor Salary – Retaining between 55% – 93% of your Gross turnover:

Size, proposition, support, technology, retention rates, and then a whole load of personal preferences will come into play when considering your next move. There are plenty of DA’s, Nationals, and Networks that will provide you with enough support to de-risk your business, reduce your costs and provide you with enough support to start building something yourself.

9 times out of 10 the goal for a Financial Advisor is to be self-employed. Usually starting in an employed role for a few years, building up a client bank and growing a network of PI’s (Professional Introducers). There’s no question about it, advisors that are self-employed will have the opportunity to earn far more than any employed Financial advisor.

How much of your fee and commission income is retained will depend on how much support you need. For example, if you need access to full administration and Paraplanning, this is a cost to the business which will be a cost that is passed down to you. A model like this we would usually see an advisor retaining anywhere between 55% – 70% of their gross turnover.

You need to ask yourself “do I actually need full Admin and Paraplanning support on every single case”? Or “Would having access to Paraplanning on a pay as you go basis be more profitable”? Most advisors will agree that on a turnover up to £150,000 per annum, they’re quite comfortable doing the majority of it themselves and outsourcing the more complex and/or time-consuming cases. In that case, you should be retaining 80% – 85% of your gross turnover.

Over the last 6 years, we have helped countless advisors increase the turnover and profitability of their advice businesses. We find that most advisors need to be questioned to really make them think about what they actually want and need. For example:

What size business (Number of advisors, are they DA, AR etc)
What advice permissions are needed
Succession planning (selling part or all of a client bank)
Regulatory Fee’s and PI Cover
Back Office support (Admin & Paraplanning)
Independent or Restricted
Integrated and streamlined Technology
The list goes on

Here are the top 5 responses we get when asking self-employed advisors “Why are you considering your options”

The business is being sold or rumours of it being sold (this is huge at the moment with mergers and acquisitions happening all the time)
No clear succession planning
For better technology and more streamlined processes. (We have a webinar called “How Advisors embrace technology to save a day a week”. Check that out by clicking here
Paying away far too much for very little to no support.
Moving to a restricted model.

Employed Financial Advisor Salary – What we typically find in today’s market place.

Earn a 1/3 of your Gross income:

This is still one of the most common setups that we come across.

You’ve been allocated an active client bank from an advisor leaving or retiring, you’re provided with new introductions and supported with full paraplanning and administration. You’ll tend to find that a good basic will be provided but a much lower commission/bonus structure, with a higher validation model. As a general rule for this type of position, we always say that the advisor should and will need to be earning 1/3 of their gross income. This will take into account the cost to run that team and enough margin for the business to make a profit.

Let’s look at an Advisor that starts a new job and is servicing a book of business that produces £200,000 pa. In this example, where the advisor is supported by an administrator and a Paraplanner, we would usually see a salary validation model 3 times with commission/bonus sitting around 20% – 30%.

So if the advisor is on a basic salary of £50,000 and generates £200,000 on this remuneration model, their total earnings will be approx £65,000. If they grew that book of business to £300,000, total revenue would be approx. £95,000.

Earn 1/2 of your Gross income:

This package makes it the easiest transition for a Financial Advisor to move self employed.

You may be provided with some introductions or have a small book of active clients to initially service, but the advisor will need to go out there and self generate their business.

We wouldn’t expect to see a validation model anywhere near 3 times for these types of roles, and we would expect to see it more along the lines of 1 – 2 times. The commission will vary depending on the validation model, but if we were looking at a 2 times validation model, it should be around 50%. On a 1 times validation model, it would usually be lower at approx. 25% – 30%. You may even see some different fee splits if the firm does introduce business to the advisor.

The same example: if the advisor is on a basic salary of £50,000 with a 2 x validation model and generates £200,000, on this remuneration model, their total earnings will be £100,000. If we look at the 1 times validation model and 30% commission, their total revenue would be £95,000.

Here are the top 5 responses we get when asking Employed advisors “Why are you considering your options”

Limited earnings due to being at capacity with clients
They’ve realised that they can look after approx. a third of their current clients and earn the same amount being self employed
Businesses being sold
To build something for themselves
Support with more client introductions

Feel free to get in contact with me should you wish to discuss your current setup.

We are always here to have a confidential conversation.

Financial Advisor Salary 2023

Any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me on LinkedIn.
Email: lee@antonygeorge.com
Phone number:01268 200 722
Mobile number: 07932 374 109
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