Anyone retrained as an Independent Financial Advisor?

[Hummussapiens]

Giving serious consideration to retraining as an IFA. Currently work as a therapist and understand that after a few years I could be back on the same salary (35-45kish). Am mid-30s with no dependents, on the housing ladder and can fund my own training. Degrees in totally unrelated fields so would need to start from scratch. I find reading about personal finance really interesting, the emotional side of people's relationship with money fascinating and like the idea of forming trusting relationships with clients and working with them to meet their financial goals. Anyone willing to share their experiences/insights/words of wisdom? Thanks!

Hopeful bump

I’ve recently looked into this myself and realised I’d need to do RO1-R06 exams with cii. I’m unsure if the money is that good now as many are ‘DIYing’ with Wealthify etc but if you can build a portfolio over £50 million you’d do ok I think.

The potential difficulties are that 1) there are increasing numbers of companies that provide self investment support and people are becoming more finance savvy and 2) To be successful as an independent you need to build a reputation for referrals. Most people who need an IFA will ask friends / colleagues for a recommendation, they won't go in "cold" through a google search .

The exams are tough and you will need to be constantly keeping up to date with regulation / legislation and there is a lot around financials and advice. This is a very different skill to reading for interest ( I am an ex banker) and being an IFA requires significant paperwork etc. so your admin needs to be strong

I used to be a PA to an IFA, and did some of the exams prior to having my children. I really enjoyed it and would love to return to this field one day. Go for it!

I looked into it, brought the study books….its dull as dishwater. If you are fed up of providing therapy, why don’t you look into setting up your own therapy clinic and just running it, or providing a training course to help other therapists qualify? I would not recommend IFA, and a lot of them are charlatans, it’s not very well regarded profession.