Financial adviser
Financial advisers help people and organisations choose investments, savings, pensions, mortgages and insurance products.
What you'll do
Day-to-day tasks
As a financial adviser, you could:
- talk to clients about their finances and plans
- research financial products and explain them simply and clearly
- negotiate with providers of financial products
- produce financial reports
- update clients about their pensions and investments
- meet performance and sales targets
- keep up to date with new products and law changes
Working environment
You could work in an office, from home, at a client's home or in a contact centre.
Career path and progression
With experience, you could:
- specialise in one area of work, like pensions
- become a manager to recruit and train new staff
- become a director or partner of your company
- move into compliance, making sure companies follow guidelines and laws
What it takes
Skills and knowledge
You'll need:
- customer service skills for finding out customer needs
- knowledge of economics and accounting for understanding financial markets and products
- maths knowledge for creating financial plans
- the ability to sell products and services
- excellent verbal communication skills
- active listening skills
- business management skills for negotiating product rates
- to be thorough and pay attention to detail
- to be able to use a computer and the main software packages competently
Restrictions and Requirements
You'll need to:
How to become
You can get into this job through:
- a university course
- an apprenticeship
- working towards this role
This role is open to graduates of most subjects.
Particularly relevant subjects include:
- financial services
- business management
- accountancy
Once you finish your course, you could apply to join a finance company or a bank as a graduate trainee adviser.
Entry requirements
You'll usually need:
- 2 to 3 A levels, or equivalent, for a degree
More Information
You could apply to do an apprenticeship, with a financial organisation, such as:
- Financial Adviser Level 4 Higher Apprenticeship
- Paraplanner and Financial Planner Level 4 Higher Apprenticeship
- Financial Services Professional Level 6 Degree Apprenticeship
Entry requirements
You'll usually need:
- 4 or 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C) and A levels, or equivalent, for a higher or degree apprenticeship
More Information
You could start as a financial services administrator, pensions administrator or customer services adviser and work your way up.
To do this, you'll need to study for a level 4 qualification in financial advice recognised by the Financial Conduct Authority.
These include:
- Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning from the Chartered Insurance Institute
- Diploma for Financial Advisers from Walbrook Institute London
- Investment Advice Diploma from the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment
If you work in pensions, you could do qualifications offered by the Pensions Management Institute, while you move into an adviser role.
Registration
- you'll need to register as an 'approved person' by the Financial Conduct Authority
Further information
You can find more information about working in financial services from Walbrook Institute London or Pension Careers.
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This page contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.