Accountants and super funds driving female adviser numbers

Mike Taylor

Managing Editor/Publisher, Financial Newswire

24 November 2022

Superannuation funds and accounting businesses have been most responsible for bringing women into the financial planning profession.

That is the bottom line of an analysis conducted by WealthData which reveals that financial planning remains a male-dominated profession but that women are making increasing inroads and that they represent a significant component of new entrants.

But, overall, women still make up less than a quarter of the financial planning profession but they are mostly younger and their presence is growing, with WealthData principal, Colin Williams noting that the proportion of female advisers increases as the year change.

“Those number of female advisers who commenced after January, 2013, has increased to 30.49% whereas before 2013 it was just 6%,
he said.

Currently the split between male and female advisers is 77.37% males versus 22.63% for females.

“The split is dominated by males across key peer groups and licensees. However, there is some hope of the mix improving with the split of female Provisional Advisers at 32.73%,” Williams said.

“At the ‘Business Model’ measure, the ‘Accounting – Limited Advice has the strongest rate at 37.61%, however, this sector of the advice market has been in serious decline over the last couple of years and only has a total of 654 advisers,” he said.

“Next best is the Super Fund sector running at 33.64%. Lowest score was at the Investment Advice business model at only 17.02%. Licensees in the model focus on investment portfolios and often using direct investments / shares.”