Welcome to the UK Toolkit 2025

The UK wealth management sector is evolving faster than at any point in its history. Once defined by personal relationships, a consistent set of products and services, and traditional models of delivery and advice, it now faces shifting client expectations, global market change, and technological reinvention.

In this, the third in our Toolkit Report Series and the first to focus on a specific geographic market, we’ve gathered perspectives from across the UK wealth management sector to explore different dimensions of this transformation. We explore topics from the digitalisation of advisory services to the rise of WealthTech, the lessons of international markets, and the promise of intelligent automation.

What we’ve found is an industry where adaptation is the price of relevance. Across the UK, wealth management has shown remarkable resilience. Yet this success conceals a growing challenge: profitability is under strain and scalability remains elusive. Firms are being pressed to do more with less — to increase productivity, attract and retain clients, and deliver seamless service while margins tighten.

New technology is at the heart of all these discussions. Once a predominantly back office consideration, it’s now a front-line driver of competitiveness. And this is not to forget the back office itself, which has now moved from a cost centre to a source of competitive advantage.

The industry's investment dramatically over the past decade, nearly tripling as firms recognise that digital capability is no longer optional. As shown in detailed studies conducted by our contributors, greater technology spend correlates directly with improved productivity and higher revenue per adviser.

But the question is not simply one of spending more. It is about spending wisely — aligning technology with strategy, culture, and client experience. Artificial intelligence (AI), once treated as a distant prospect, is now a practical tool for enhancing efficiency and insight. Our contributors emphasise that technology must complement, not replace, the human relationships on which trust is built. While we have AI, we don’t yet have AE, or artificial empathy. That is where the human adviser comes in, and where firms have the opportunity to stand out.

We also consider the new generation of digital-native, mobile, and globally connected clients. They want advice that is personal yet data-driven, accessible yet discreet, and available through the channel of their choice. In this environment, WealthTech providers are redefining what wealth platforms can do, combining AI, analytics, and automation to deliver hyper-personalised strategies at scale.

In a crowded WealthTech field, this Toolkit shows that the firms that will thrive are those that focus on solving real problems rather than chasing hype. Transparency about how technology works, measurable outcomes backed by data, and collaboration with trusted partners all help to build credibility. Innovation remains essential — but so does the ability to communicate value in human terms.

The transformation underway in the UK does not exist in isolation. Lessons from other markets, particularly the United States, show what may lie ahead. There, the turnkey asset management programme (TAMP) model has grown from a niche concept into a multitrillion-dollar cornerstone of wealth distribution that offers a tantalising glimpse of the future for the UK’s managed portfolio solutions (MPS) market. The parallels are striking: both have evolved in response to fee pressure, regulatory complexity, and the desire for efficiency, and both are being powered by outsourcing, scalability, and the integration of advanced digital tools. For UK firms, the US experience is a preview of what could follow — rapid growth, consolidation, and a new equilibrium between advice, product, technology, and scale.

Our first UK Toolkit has discovered a sector rich in opportunity but facing fundamental reinvention. Our contributors don’t see technology, data, and automation as ends in themselves but as tools to enhance client outcomes, improve efficiency, and sustain growth. The wealth management firms that succeed will combine digital agility with human understanding, operational rigour with creativity, and scale with personal relevance.

Ready to dive into the report and discover more about the UK Toolkit? You can read and download the report online here.

Data Insights

Wealth management is a core part of the United Kingdom’s financial services sector. It reflects the UK’s traditional economic strength, a huge factor in wealth creation, and the global reach of London as one of the world’s leading international financial centres.

With a significant local wealth market to access and service, combined with substantial offshore wealth managed in the UK from around the world, the result is a large UK wealth management sector, characterised by high client numbers and assets under management,

and a thriving ecosystem of both firms and employees. It also benefits from access to London’s deep bench of banking and supporting professional industries that service both local and overseas-based wealth.

Below, we profile the market in more detail.

Market size

According to the UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, the UK is home to 3.8 percent of total global private wealth. That puts it alongside Germany, and ahead of India and France, though far behind the United States with 35 percent and China with 20 percent. In total, the UBS report counts 2,624,000 high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) with more than US$1 million in assets in the UK.

Total private wealth (including pension wealth) in the UK (actually Great Britain — therefore, excluding Northern Ireland) stood at £13.57 trillion (US$18.38 trillion) by the end of March 2022, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS)’ January 2025 survey ‘Total Wealth: Wealth in Great Britain’.

ONS data for the same period also breaks down the wealth held by those in Great Britain as follows:

• Median household wealth in Great Britain was £293,700 (US$397,900).
• The wealthiest 10% of households had household wealth of £1.2 million (US$1.6 million) or more, while the least wealthy 10 percent had £16,500 (US$22,350) or less.
• Median household wealth varied by region, with the largest difference seen between the South East with £489,800 (US$663,000) and the North East with £179,900 (US$243,600).

For most of the UK wealth management industry, particularly those local market brands that do not operate outside of the UK, the major prize is managing some of that £1.92 trillion (US$2.6 trillion) in financial wealth. Some firms might also target the UK’s physical wealth, which the ONS defines as the “value of household contents, possessions and valuables owned, such as antiques, artworks, collections and any vehicles owned by individuals”.

But the two biggest pieces of the pie by far — property wealth and pension wealth — tend to be harder to access, depending on their origin and structure. This is especially true for mass market wealth clients below the high net worth (HNW) and ultra-high net worth (UHNW) segments.

According to Boston Consulting Group’s Global Wealth Report 2025, the UK is home to another US$1 trillion in private wealth from overseas-based clients, thanks to London’s leading role as an international financial centre. This makes it the fifth-largest cross-border wealth booking centre after Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States. Largely, this wealth is managed within private banks, family offices, and other internationally-oriented brands that service HNW and UHNW clients.

So the industry has several trillion in private wealth to go for. But how successful has it been in accessing these pots of private wealth? The data is again somewhat hard to access, but it is clear that the industry does not reach too far into these asset pools, as topics like the advice gap illustrate.

A 2022 L.E.K. Consulting research paper, UK Wealth Management: Spotlight on Value Creation, suggested that the UK wealth management sector managed around £2 trillion (US$2.7 trillion) in personal liquid investable financial assets held by UK households in 2020, plus a further £1.9 trillion (US$2.57 trillion) from within defined benefit pension liabilities.

Of that total figure, L.E.K suggested around £1.2 trillion (US$1.62 trillion) was managed by what it called ‘the advisory community’, which consists of financial advisers (the largest proportion), discretionary wealth managers, and private banks.

Although a hard number to confirm, the £1.2 trillion figure above is very similar to the £1.3 trillion (US$1.76 trillion) in assets cited by the now-closed Compeer research business in its 2023 UK wealth management industry annual research report.

In an Industry Perspective contained elsewhere in the 2025 Toolkit, you will find data from Compeer’s successor firm BWC Benchmarking that shows UK wealth management firms and execution-only stockbrokers today manage and administer more than £1.5 trillion (US$2.03 trillion) of private client assets. As BWC Benchmarking CEO James Brown describes, these firms generated £10.34 trillion (US$13.97 billion) of revenue — a new record, and a year-on-year rise of £440 million (US$594 million).

These numbers show that the number of assets captured by the industry is far short of its total opportunity. Self-directed assets, pension assets, insurance schemes, property wealth, and physical wealth often remain outside of the sector’s reach.

The UK wealth management sector which looks to service this wealth, is both diverse and highly fragmented. There is no dominant player, but rather a broad set of choices for clients by brand, business model, offering, and location.

Ready to dive into the report and discover more about the UK Toolkit? You can read and download the report online here.

Regulation and compliance

As a part of the financial services landscape, the UK wealth management sector is increasingly highly-regulated, primarily by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), but with additional obligations driven by UK law and international standards. Compared to the historic norm, the industry now faces a far higher regulatory burden than ever.

Here are some of the main regulatory areas and topics covering the operations and behaviours of the industry.

• Consumer Duty: places greater emphasis on value for money, transparency, and protecting vulnerable clients, and requires increased reporting on fees, costs, ESG disclosures, and suitability.
• FCA Principles for Businesses (PRIN): require that firms act with integrity, treat customers fairly, and manage conflicts of interest.
• Senior Managers & Certification Regime (SM&CR): places accountability on senior leaders for conduct, governance, and risk.
• Conduct of Business Sourcebook (COBS): covers the day-to-day rules for advisers and wealth managers, including suitability assessments for investments, disclosure of costs, charges, and risks, restrictions on inducements and commissions, and best execution obligations when executing client trades.
• MiFID II (UK post-Brexit version): contains crucial obligations including client categorisation, detailed transaction reporting, research unbundling, and product governance rules.
• Anti-Money Laundering and financial crime regulations: require wealth managers to carry out Know Your Customer and Customer Due Diligence processes, including ongoing monitoring, while they are also obliged to report suspicious activity under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) and comply with UK sanctions regimes.
• Prudential & capital requirements: including the Investment Firms Prudential Regime (IFPR), which covers some wealth managers depending on their classification; this rule also includes capital adequacy, liquidity, risk management, and governance requirements.
• Data protection & cybersecurity obligations: include complying with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, the protection of sensitive financial and personal client data, and reporting data breaches promptly to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
• ESG & sustainability disclosure obligations: require firms to disclose sustainability-related risks and opportunities; specific rules include the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and an anti-greenwashing rule.
• Client Assets (CASS): provide specific requirements for holding and safeguarding client money and custody assets.
• Compensation & complaints rules: require each firm to be a member of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) and the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) for client protection.

Looking forward, there are further changes coming to the regulatory frameworks. Areas which are emerging for the industry include:

• further updates to the SDR and ESG rules, including ongoing disclosure requirements;
• review of the Consumer Duty framework to streamline disclosures and reduce complexity;
• the Leeds Reforms, which aim to boost retail investment and ease capital market rules; and
• free pension and savings guidance to help savers engage with pension and investment decisions.

The ‘burden’ of regulation is also a key driver in the next highlighted topic, given the heightened cost of compliance.

Consolidation and M&A

The UK wealth management sector is now in full consolidation mode. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are in full swing.

This is a theme that started several decades back, according to the recent ‘Consolidation mode in Wealth Management’ report, authored by FoxRed Insight and Solve Partners and sponsored by SEI.

The report finds there have been a total of 767 transactions from 2018 to the end of the first quarter of 2025, with a significant uptick taking place from 2021.

It also cited a 5.6 percent reduction between 2023 and 2024 in the number of firms authorised by the FCA to give advice, with the overall number dropping by 11.3 percent since 2022, a possible effect of consolidation.

The fragmented nature of the market, particularly at its smaller end, plus the increasing cost of staying competitive (compliance, people, technology, etc.), is a perfect storm for consolidation and M&A. Add in the potential to access businesses with solid recurring revenues, and the industry is highly attractive to both internal and external investors.

As such, money is changing hands at a significant rate. According to Boston Consulting Group, a total of 67 M&A transactions worth £8.4 billion (US$11.4 billion) completed in 2024. Meanwhile, the FoxRed Insight / Solve Partners / SEI study found that 77 percent of its respondent firms intended to acquire in 2025, showing the market is not done yet.

Further, valuations are rising. Research from NextWealth found that the cost of acquiring firms has doubled since 2021, increasing from x3-6 EBITDA in 2021 to x6-12 in 2024.

The market is also increasingly competitive. Existing market participants are buying up their competitors and peers, sometimes with the backing of investors and private equity.

A growing number of private equity-based consolidators are also active in the market, and foreign entrants are buying up UK businesses to expand their global footprint, capabilities, and client profile.

Major consolidators include:

• Amber River
• Fairstone
• HFMC
• Perspective
• Sandringham Partners
• Söderberg & Partners
• Titan Wealth
• Verso
• Wren Sterling

Significant M&A deals include:

• Evelyn Partners, formed via the merger of Smith & Williamson and Tilney.
• Brewin Dolphin being acquired by Royal Bank of Canada.
• Kingswood Group and Mattioli Woods merging (backed by Pollen Street Capital).
• London & Capital acquiring Waverton.
• Rathbones acquiring Investec Wealth & Investment.
• Stonehage Fleming and Stanhope Capital beingacquired by Corient.
• Raymond James buying Charles Stanley.

The advice gap

The advice gap is a major topic for the UK financial services sector, including the wealth management market. It represents both a significant opportunity and a formidable challenge.

The FCA defines the advice gap as a situation where consumers want advice but cannot access it on affordable or appropriate terms. People either want or need advice, but cannot access it, perhaps because of the cost, or lack of accessibility or awareness.

Put in numbers:

• There are around 39 million adults in the UK who have some investable assets but do not take any form of regulated financial advice.
• Meanwhile, according to the 2024 FCA Financial Lives survey, only 8.6 to 9 percent of UK adults received regulated financial advice in the 12 months to May 2024.

The advice gap is particularly evident among the mass affluent who have the investable assets to engage, but feel advice is too expensive or only relevant to HNW and UHNW investors. This challenge is exacerbated on the wealth management side, where firms see these lower-value clients as unprofitable to serve and often raise their minimums to focus on higher-value clients.

Regulatory efforts are continuing to open the market to more mass-affluent and lower-value clients, and the arrival of more digital investing platforms like Moneybox, Moneyfarm, Nutmeg, and Wealthify (alongside similar incumbent propositions) has chipped away ever so slightly at the advice gap. But the truth remains that it remains a problem of enormous significance for the industry.

The client

Clients are the lifeblood of the industry, but the focus has been heavily on the traditional client segments of mass-affluent, HNW and UHNW.

 That is changing. Alongside wealth levels, factors such as gender, ethnicity, age, origin of wealth, preferences, and interests, will all dictate how wealth managers approach, engage, service, and retain clients moving forward.

Areas to look out for in terms of the client include:

• The mass-affluent: Defined as those individuals with between £50,000 and £5 million (US$68,000 and US$6.8 million) in investable assets: there were an estimated 13.1 million such individuals at the end of 2022, with this number expected to grow to 14.3 million by the end of 2026, according to GlobalData. The research firm also forecasts that the liquid assets of this group will increase from £2.6 trillion to £3 trillion (US$3.52 trillion to US$4.07 trillion) in the same time frame.
• Female wealth: Despite a clear gender gap still in wealth today, there is increasing data suggesting that women will control much more in the near future. According to research from the Centre for Economic and Business Research, women are expected to hold 60 percent of the UK’s wealth by the end of this year. Much of this will have been inherited from their deceased spouses.
• Wealth transfer: In the UK, according to the Wealth-X report, ‘Preservation and Succession: Family Wealth Transfer 2021’, up to £7 trillion (US$9.49 trillion) will pass between generations by 2030. Given the high percentage of inheritors that are expected to change advisers, there is likely to be significant churn across the industry as clients move money from one relationship to another.
• Entrepreneurs and other specialist segments: how clients make their money has evolved, with technology entrepreneurs, diverse sports and media figures, social media influencers, and holders of property portfolios, all becoming a bigger part of the client base.

The evolution in the shape of the client market will necessitate a change in multiple areas, including:

• products and services, with increased focus on elements like ESG and values-based investing;
• the recruitment of younger and more digitally-savvy advisers; and
• investment in technology to give investors digital-first experiences.

Technology and digital transformation

Technology across the industry will deliver fundamental change. Whether that is in efficiency, reach, enabling new services, upskilling staff, or more, the potential for technology in an increasingly complex industry is huge.

There are a wide range of reasons to bring technology further and deeper into the UK wealth management business model. These include:

• Efficiency — streamlining processes, adding automation, cutting the cost (and risk) of manual intervention.
• Adviser enablement — making advisers’ work easier, quicker, more efficient, less manual and repetitive, giving them time to focus on higher-value tasks.
• Client engagement — giving clients more ways to engage, when and how they want, presenting the business and offering in more ways, and allowing them a broader role in the management of their wealth and the process behind it.
• Compliance — ensuring compliance with a wider range of regulations, ensuring information and processes are clear, accessible and repeatable, reducing the risk to the business.
• Product and services — allowing the businesses, should the need arise, to deliver a wider and more complex set of products and services, supporting distribution, management, and reporting.
• Revenue growth — supporting firms through the management of more clients, the enablement of more products and services, and more flexible pricing models, to generate more revenue while also keeping a lid on costs.

Products and services

The marketplace of offerings has radically expanded within the financial wealth area. But for clients, there is still a heavy emphasis on traditional asset classes and products for the majority of their wealth. Exposure to more exotic investments remains largely the realm of HNWIs, and UHNWIs even more so.

As of today, UK private wealth is primarily held as follows:

• Around 20 to 25 percent of liquid household assets are in cash equivalents.
• Equities account for roughly 30 to 35 percent of liquid investable wealth, typically accessed directly, through mutual funds and ETFs.
• Around 10 to 15 percent of liquid assets are invested in bonds.
• Property often forms the largest single asset class in total net wealth, especially among HNW individuals.
• A large proportion of UK wealth is in pensions.
• Alternatives are far more prevalent in UHNW asset allocations, typically accounting for around 25 percent to 30 percent.

Although the client base is somewhat conservative today, this is changing: client demands, together with industry need and development, are evolving the investment product mix. Clients are looking for more ETFs, ESG, and crypto opportunities, while the industry is looking to democratise access to a range of alternative investments such as private equity, venture capital, real estate, structured products, infrastructure, commodities, and private credit.

Finally, the service landscape is evolving too. Financial planning has moved to the fore and is increasingly evident in banking and investment management-led firm types — such as PCIMs, asset managers, and private banks.

Broader service offerings, such as trust and estate support, philanthropy, family business services, and corporate finance, are more evident today in different business types than they have historically been.

No doubt this expansion of the product and service mix will continue as firms seek to expand into new markets, segments and opportunities, increase their revenue opportunity, and further their stickiness with clients from generation to generation.

Conclusion

The UK wealth management sector stands at a crossroads — one defined by both scale and transformation. As one of the largest wealth markets globally, it commands trillions in domestic and offshore assets, supported by London’s unique position as a global financial centre. But despite its size and maturity, the industry faces profound structural and strategic challenges; the firms that best answer these challenges are the ones that will succeed in the years to come.

The data paints a picture of opportunity tempered by fragmentation. Despite the vast pools of private wealth within the UK, only a fraction is managed through professional wealth channels. Much remains locked in property, pensions, and self-directed assets, leaving enormous potential for firms that can reach these untapped markets efficiently and responsibly.

Bridging this divide will require innovation — not only in technology, but also in client engagement, pricing models, and service accessibility.

At the same time, the sector continues to navigate intensifying regulatory scrutiny and rising compliance costs, compelling firms to modernise their processes and their data infrastructure. This pressure has accelerated consolidation of smaller firms, as scale becomes critical for both profitability and compliance viability. The result is a rapidly concentrating market — one still highly diverse in structure, but increasingly dominated by firms that combine efficiency with client-centric innovation.

Technology will be the decisive enabler of this new era. From automation and digital onboarding to data analytics and AI-driven insight, digital transformation is redefining how advisers serve clients, how clients interact with their wealth, and how firms drive performance and resilience. Those that invest strategically in technology will be best positioned to expand access, improve efficiency, and close the longstanding advice gap that still leaves millions without professional guidance.

Equally, the shape of the client base is changing. The rise of female wealth, generational transfers, and the growth of the mass-affluent segment all demand a more inclusive, data-driven, and flexible approach.

Successful firms will not only respond to these shifts but anticipate them — designing propositions that are both personalised and scalable.

UK wealth management remains in robust shape, but its future will depend on reinvention. Firms that embrace change, invest wisely, and stay client-focused will define the next chapter of this vital and evolving market.

Interested in reading the UK Toolkit 2025? You can read and download the report online here.

About the UK Toolkit 2025

The UK Toolkit 2025 report examines the shape of wealth management in the UK today, and how industry participants are responding to the challenges and opportunities of this market. It features 14 articles contributed by a range of industry participants — including wealth managers, vendors, and consultants focused on financial services. It also showcases eight technology offerings relevant to the wealth management industry in the United Kingdom.

Our broader Toolkit Report Series covers thematic, geography and wealth manager segment-focused reports, each tasked with delving into the topics and supporting technologies of relevance to help wealth managers of all types better understand how they should bring technology into their business and in which areas.

Following this third report, focused on the UK, we are publishing:

• Future View Toolkit – discover more here
• US RIA Toolkit – discover more here

Discover our latest reports!

• UK Toolkit 2025 – read here
• European WealthTech Landscape Report 2025 – read here
• AI Toolkit 2025 – read here
• Client Experience Toolkit 2024 – read here

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