The recently formed Women’s Wealth Alliance (WWA), a working group of independent professional body the Consumer Duty Alliance, has commissioned a landmark survey of women in personal finance.
The comprehensive research, managed independently by YouGov and with the support of IBOSS, aims to provide a valuable picture of the career journeys and lived experiences of women in a wide range of roles across the sector.
This includes financial planning, mortgage and protection advice, financial coaching, academy members, paraplanning, compliance, T&C and support roles.
Only 18% of regulated financial advisers in the UK are women, according to Financial Conduct Authority’s records.
The survey will look specifically at whether this is a role that respondents would consider in the future, or if they are currently a financial adviser, if it’s a role they would recommend to other women.
Women’s Wealth Alliance chair and chartered financial planner Vanessa Barnes said: “One of the key aims of the Women’s Wealth Alliance is to help attract more women into a career in personal finance and the financial planning role in particular, helping to foster a diverse sector that better reflects the needs and perspectives of clients.
“This is especially relevant when you consider that 60% of the nation’s wealth is expected to be in female hands by the end of this year, according to the Centre for Economic and Business Research.
“Before looking at potential solutions to this ongoing challenge, however, we felt that it was really important to gain some proper data and insight on women’s current career journeys.”
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She said the WWA wants to look at how women entered the sector, where they are now and what their ambitions are, along with any barriers or challenges.
“We can’t wait to hear what women have to tell us,” said Barnes.
The findings will inform the future work of the WWA and enable the sector to better tackle the enduring gender imbalance in certain personal finance roles.
It will also help in building meaningful strategies to attract more women into the talent pipeline.
The survey, which can be found here, is open from 2 to 23 June and takes about 10-15 minutes to complete.
Responses are anonymised and strictly confidential.
