Easy stocks & shares ISA

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I have 100k+ in cash ISAs and the interest rates just keep going down. I've never invested in S&S ISAs so don't know where to start. Can probably lock 80% of it away for 5 years. Can anyone recommend me a good place to start please, which doesn't have high fees?

Choose a platform... Trading212, Vanguard, Fidelity all have very low to low fees. You could open a S+S ISA with one or more of them, stick a small bit of money in so you can learn the platform to see if you find it easy to use before you transfer in thousands.

You'll need to choose fund(s) to invest in once your money is in the S+S ISA wrapper. Vanguard's FTSE Global All Cap Index fund for example has 0.23% fees which is on the low side. 1% fees would be considered high to give you a point of refrence. Funds which track a country's, continent's or world markets are more diverse and hense less risky than choosing something more specific like an individual stock (a financial chunk of a single company) Or a particular sector of industry eg semiconductors. Passively managed funds have lower fees than actively managed funds and historically often better growth.

The money isn't locked away, you can access it whenever you want to. But it's recommended to leave it alone for the longterm because long term growth trumps any short term market volatility. 5 years is on the shorter side of long term, although if you have wiggle room in your 5 year plan you could be more reasonably assured you didn't need to withdraw the money during a dip in the market. If you're able to leave most of the capital in place for something more like 10 years you'd be in a better position

This. Couldn't say it better.

First choose a platform. Scottish widows share dealing is free to open and investment is free for regular savings or £5 for a lump sum.

Go for a low cost index tracker fund or mixed investment fund which includes shares and bonds. Fund fees will vary but should be < 0.5% for a passive fund, more for an actively managed fund. Unless you want an income get accumulation units. Don't panic when the value drops.

Excellent summary from MadasaMongoose above

I would add: with many tracker funds (which are generally a relatively safe bet as they track larger markets), you can get ESG screened versions. ESG stands for "environmental and social governance", and "ESG screened" means that the tracker fund does not include companies whose work harms the environment or society. In broad terms, it strips out the bad guys - usually stuff like arms dealers, gambling companies, deforesters, etc.

Of course, by choosing not to invest in these, you're cutting yourself off from potential profit. But it's worth considering. There's more to investing than just money.

Thankyou that's all really helpful.

I see my pension pot (with Fidelity) growing at about 8% so when I'm getting less than 4% interest on cash savings it's frustrating.

Just be careful you don't replicate the exact same investments in your ISA as you already have in your pension. It's really easy to end up with too much of your money in Alphabet, Meta, NVidia etc (tech companies that have already done incredibly well). You want a more diverse mix if possible.