Choosing a financial adviser is uncomfortable because you are being asked to judge expertise you do not have, about money you cannot afford to get wrong. Most guides to this are written by advisers and quietly conclude that you should use that adviser. This one gives you the checks, the published cost benchmarks, the questions, and the places to find other advisers, so that you can reach your own conclusion.
To be straightforward about the bias: I am an independent financial adviser based in Southport, I charge for advice, and I would be glad to work with you. I am also not the right fit for everyone. If you want someone in an office in the town centre you can walk into, or a large firm with a team behind it, or you have a specialism I do not cover, there are people locally who suit you better. You will be able to tell which by the end of this page.
Step 1: Check they are on the FCA Register
This is not optional and it takes two minutes. Anyone giving regulated financial advice in the UK must be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, either directly or as an appointed representative of an authorised firm.
Go to register.fca.org.uk and check three things:
- The individual. Search the adviser's name. You should find them, with a reference number, and see which firms they are approved to act for.
- The firm. Search the firm separately. Confirm it is authorised for advising on investments and, if relevant, pension transfers. Firms can be authorised for some activities and not others.
- The contact details. Use the phone number and address shown on the Register, not the one on the email you received. Cloning a genuine firm's identity is one of the most common investment scams, and the Register is the way to defeat it.
If someone is not on the Register, you have no route to the Financial Ombudsman Service and no FSCS protection. That is the whole game. Nothing else on this page matters if this check fails.
Step 2: Understand independent versus restricted
This distinction is regulated, and firms have to tell you which they are before giving advice.
Independent
Advice must be unbiased and unrestricted, based on a comprehensive analysis of relevant products from across the whole of the market. An independent adviser is not tied to any provider.
Restricted
Any personal recommendation that is not independent. The restriction might be to a single provider's products, to a limited panel of providers, or to a single area such as pensions only. The FCA's own examples cover all three.
Here is the honest part that adverts from independent firms tend to skip. Restricted is not automatically worse. A restricted adviser who specialises deeply in one area may serve you better than a generalist independent one. Some large restricted firms have excellent research functions and good outcomes for clients. The distinction tells you about the range of options being considered, not about the quality of the person considering them.
What matters is that you are told clearly, in writing, which you are getting, and that you understand the consequence. If a firm can only recommend its own products, you should expect it to recommend its own products.
Step 3: Check the qualifications, and know what they mean
The letters after an adviser's name are meaningful, but not in the way most people assume.
- RQF Level 4 is the minimum required to give regulated financial advice in the UK. The most common route is the Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning from the Chartered Insurance Institute, which carries the designation Dip PFS. Equivalent qualifications are offered by the London Institute of Banking and Finance and the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment. Level 4 is the professional entry standard, not a shortcut.
- A Statement of Professional Standing (SPS) is separate and arguably more important. Every adviser must hold a current one, renewed annually, backed by continuing professional development. Ask to see it. An adviser without a current SPS cannot legally advise you.
- RQF Level 6 is the advanced level, leading to Chartered Financial Planner or Certified Financial Planner status. Chartered status through the CII additionally requires at least five years in the profession. It represents genuinely more study, particularly in complex tax and estate planning.
Level 6 is a real signal of technical depth and is worth seeking out if your affairs are complicated. It is not a guarantee of good service, good communication, or a fair price, and plenty of excellent advisers hold Level 4. Treat it as one input, not a filter.
Step 4: Find out what it actually costs
This is where most people get least information and need it most, so here are the published benchmarks to measure any quote against.
NextWealth's Fee Benchmarking Report 2026, based on a survey of 545 UK financial advisers, puts the average ongoing advice fee at 0.83% a year, up from 0.77% in 2025. Its wider work has put typical initial advice at around 1.8%. The FCA has published figures showing average initial advice charges of around 2.4% of the amount invested and ongoing advice at around 0.8% a year.
Percentage charging is close to universal, typically in the range 0.5% to 1% a year for ongoing advice, usually tiered so that larger portfolios pay a lower percentage.
The number to ask for
The adviser's percentage is not what you pay. There are usually three layers:
- Adviser charge for the advice itself
- Platform charge for holding the investments
- Fund charges inside the investments themselves
Ask every adviser you speak to the same question: "What is my total annual cost, in pounds, including platform and fund charges, in year one and in a typical year afterwards?" A good adviser will answer it without hesitation. If you get a percentage instead of a number, ask again.
Also ask what you get for the ongoing fee. An annual review, a rebalance and a valuation is worth something. It is not worth the same as full cashflow planning, tax-year-end work and access whenever you need it. The percentages look similar across firms; what sits behind them does not.
Step 5: Know what protection you have
Two safety nets exist, and they cover different situations.
- The Financial Ombudsman Service handles complaints where the firm is still trading. You must complain to the firm first. For complaints referred on or after 1 April 2026 about acts or omissions from 1 April 2019 onwards, the maximum award is £455,000. For earlier acts or omissions the limit is lower. The service is free to consumers.
- The Financial Services Compensation Scheme steps in where the firm has failed. For investment claims it pays up to £85,000 per person per firm. That limit is per authorised firm, not per product or per account, so holding an ISA and a pension with the same provider does not double it.
Both depend on the firm being FCA authorised, which is why Step 1 comes first.
Step 6: The questions to ask in a first meeting
First meetings are normally free, and you should treat them as an interview rather than a sales appointment. These are the questions that actually separate advisers:
- Are you independent or restricted, and what does that mean for what you can recommend to me?
- What are your qualifications, and can I see your Statement of Professional Standing?
- What is my total annual cost in pounds, including platform and fund charges?
- What exactly do I get for the ongoing fee, and how do I cancel it?
- Who is your typical client, and are they like me?
- Who actually does the work, you or a paraplanner, and who will I speak to in three years?
- How are you paid, and does anything about your recommendation change what you earn?
- What happens to my plan if you retire, sell the firm, or are unavailable?
- Can you show me an example of the actual output I would receive?
- What would make you tell me I do not need advice?
The last one is the most revealing. Any adviser worth using can name a situation where they would send you away.
Red flags
- Not on the FCA Register, or details that do not match the Register.
- Cold contact. Unsolicited calls, emails or texts about your pension. Pension cold calling is banned in the UK.
- Pressure and deadlines. Any genuine recommendation survives you thinking about it for a fortnight.
- Guaranteed or unusually high returns. Nobody can guarantee investment returns.
- Vagueness on cost. If you cannot get a pounds figure out of someone before you commit, you will not get one afterwards.
- Early pension access. Anyone offering access before the minimum pension age is almost certainly running a scam and the tax charges are severe.
- A recommendation before a proper fact find. Nobody can know what suits you before they know your circumstances, your other assets and your objectives.
Where to find advisers other than me
You should be comparing two or three people. These are the places to look:
- The FCA Register at register.fca.org.uk. Authoritative, though it is a verification tool rather than a directory to browse.
- Unbiased and VouchedFor, both of which list advisers by postcode and carry client reviews. VouchedFor verifies reviews with the client.
- The Personal Finance Society and the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment, whose directories let you filter for Chartered and Certified advisers specifically.
- MoneyHelper, the free government-backed service, which offers guidance and a retirement adviser directory. Pension Wise, part of the same service, gives free appointments to anyone over 50 with a defined contribution pension. Use it before you pay anyone.
- Recommendations from a solicitor or accountant. Professionals who see the aftermath of poor advice tend to be careful about who they refer to.
Southport and the wider Sefton area are served by a mix of local independent firms, national wealth managers with regional offices, and restricted advisers tied to a single provider. All three models work for some people. Run every one of them through the same checks.
For transparency, here are my own answers
It would be poor form to give you a checklist and then dodge it. So, factually:
| FCA status | John Anthony Sykes, FCA reference JXS00972. Independent Financial Adviser connected to Fintuity Limited, authorised and regulated by the FCA, firm reference 814106. |
| Independent or restricted | Independent, whole of market. |
| Qualifications | Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning (Dip PFS), RQF Level 4, Chartered Insurance Institute. Not Chartered. If you want a Level 6 adviser, the PFS and CISI directories will find you one. |
| Fees | Published in full on the fees page, including worked examples in pounds. Initial advice up to 3% subject to a £500 minimum, ongoing 1% a year subject to a £250 minimum, advice-only work from £600 plus VAT. Platform and fund charges are separate and are shown to you before you commit. |
| Where I sit on price | My 1% ongoing charge is above the 0.83% survey average quoted earlier on this page. If ongoing cost is your main criterion, you can find cheaper. What that fee buys is set out on the fees page so you can decide whether it is worth the difference. |
| Typical client | People approaching or in retirement, usually with pensions of £300,000 or more, often with an estate large enough for inheritance tax to be a live question. |
| Where I am less suitable | I am a sole adviser, not a firm with a team, and I work remotely and locally rather than from a town centre office. If you want a large firm, an office to visit, or a specialism such as complex trust or corporate work, someone else will serve you better. |
| Complaints | Through Fintuity in the first instance, then the Financial Ombudsman Service. Details on the regulatory page. |
Frequently asked questions
Often not. FCA data shows only 30.6% of people accessing a pension for the first time in 2024/25 took regulated advice, and many of them were fine without it. If you have one or two straightforward pots and a clear plan, MoneyHelper and Pension Wise may be all you need, and both are free. Advice tends to earn its cost where a decision cannot be undone, where there are several pots or a defined benefit pension in the mix, or where the estate is large enough that inheritance tax is in play.
Not technically. Advice is delivered perfectly well by video call and most firms now work that way at least part of the time. Local matters if you want to meet face to face, which many people do for a decision of this size, and it matters if you value someone who knows the area. It does not affect the quality of the advice or the protection you have. Choose on the checks in this article first and on geography second.
It depends on the size of your portfolio. Percentage charging is close to universal and has the advantage of aligning the adviser's income with your fund value, but on a large portfolio it can produce a fee well out of proportion to the work involved. 1% on £1 million is £10,000 a year, which is a lot for an annual review. Flat-fee and hourly advisers exist and are usually better value at higher portfolio values, though they are less common. The honest test is to convert every quote into pounds and ask whether the work justifies the number.
Yes, and you can usually do it without moving your investments. Ongoing adviser charges are cancellable, typically with a short notice period, and you can instruct your platform to stop paying them. Moving to a new adviser is a separate decision from moving your money, and a good new adviser will not automatically recommend moving everything. Check the notice period and any exit charges in your current agreement before you start.
Sources
- Financial Conduct Authority, Financial Services Register
- FCA Handbook, COBS 6.2A: Describing advice services
- NextWealth, Fee Benchmarking Report 2026
- Financial Conduct Authority, Retirement income market data 2024/25
- Financial Ombudsman Service, Compensation and award limits
- Financial Services Compensation Scheme, Investment protection
- Chartered Insurance Institute, Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning