Most financial advisers charge a percentage of your wealth. The work they do for a client with £500,000 and a client with £800,000 may be identical. The fee won't be. A fixed-fee financial adviser charges for the work, not the wealth. Over a decade, that distinction is worth thousands.
Imagine a restaurant where the bill has nothing to do with what you ordered. You had the soup and a glass of house white. The couple beside you had the tasting menu with paired wines. But they earn less than you, so their bill is lower. Yours is £200. Theirs is £80.
You'd walk out. Obviously.
And yet this is how most UK financial advisers charge. Not by the work involved, not by the complexity of your situation, but by the size of your portfolio. According to the
NextWealth Fee Benchmarking Report 2026, roughly seven in ten UK advice firms still charge this way.
The average ongoing adviser fee has risen to 0.83% of invested assets, up from 0.77% the previous year. On a £500,000 portfolio, that's around £4,150 a year. On £800,000, it's £6,640. Same adviser. Same annual review. Same phone calls. Over £2,000 more, every year, for what may be identical work.
Only around 29% of firms use fixed fees, a marked increase on previous years but still the minority approach. Most people paying for advice in the UK are on a percentage arrangement they've probably never questioned.
And most agreed to it because it was presented as a small percentage, and small percentages feel painless. They aren't. They compound. The larger your portfolio grows, the more you pay for a service that isn't growing with it.
Something about that probably bothers you already.
What percentage fees cost in pounds
Take a £500,000 portfolio. At 1% a year, the adviser fee starts at £5,000. Reasonable enough, on its face. But that portfolio is growing. Assuming 7% annual growth with the fee deducted from the total, the portfolio rises and so does the bill. By year ten, the annual charge is well above £8,000. Total adviser fees over that decade: roughly £57,000.
A fixed fee of £5,000 a year for the same period costs £50,000. That's £7,000 less on a half-million pound portfolio, and the gap widens the wealthier you become. On £1 million, the ten-year difference is closer to £15,000. On £2 million, it exceeds six figures.
This system wasn't designed for clients. Percentage-based charging is a remnant of the old commission model, repackaged after the regulator banned commissions in 2013. The structure changed. The economics didn't. Your portfolio had a good year, so lunch costs more. You didn't order anything different. And with
consolidation reshaping the UK advice industry, many clients are finding their fees rising further as private equity-backed firms acquire smaller practices.
The FCA's Consumer Duty, introduced in 2023, requires firms to demonstrate that their fees represent "fair value" relative to the service delivered. That pressure is one reason fixed-fee models are gaining ground: when an adviser charges £20,000 a year on a £2 million portfolio for the same service a client with a fraction of that wealth receives, "fair value" becomes a hard case to make. A fixed-fee financial adviser can answer the question in pounds, not percentages.
What a fixed-fee financial adviser does differently
When a
financial planner's fee reflects the complexity of the work rather than the size of the portfolio, the incentive to keep assets under management disappears. Advice can focus on what the client needs, including, sometimes, the recommendation to spend, give away, or stop worrying about their money.
This is the model
rockwealth operates on. Fees are based on the time and complexity of the work involved, not the value of the portfolio. That distinction matters more than it sounds. A percentage-fee adviser has a structural reason to encourage you to invest more, even when the right answer might be to pay off your mortgage, fund your children's education, or simply enjoy your money. A fixed-fee financial adviser doesn't face that conflict.
The scope of the relationship changes too. Because the fee isn't tied to assets, there's no reason to treat every conversation as an investment conversation. Financial planning can address the full picture: tax, pensions, protection, estate planning, and the broader question of whether your money is organised around the life you want to live.
Most people don't fully grasp what they're paying under the percentage model. The average ongoing adviser fee rose from 0.77% to 0.83% in a single year. On a £500,000 portfolio, that's an extra £300 annually, deducted without a phone call, a letter, or a conversation. Chances are, if your adviser raised your fee last year, you didn't notice. That's the point. Percentages are designed to be invisible.
A fixed-fee financial adviser works like a restaurant with prices on the menu. You see what you're getting. You know what it costs.
The pounds-not-percentages test
One question will tell you almost everything you need to know about your current arrangement. Ask your adviser: "What am I paying you, in total, in pounds, and what does that number buy me each year?"
A confident adviser with a fair fee structure will answer without hesitation: a figure in pounds, a clear description of the work it covers, and no flinching. If the response involves percentages rather than pounds, or vague references to "ongoing management" without specifics, that's your answer too.
If a restaurant can put prices on a menu, a fixed-fee financial adviser can put a fee in pounds on a letter. The ones who won't are usually the ones who benefit from you not asking.
rockwealth charges
fair, fixed financial fees, is fully independent, and combines
evidence-based investing with genuine financial planning. There is no incentive to recommend you invest more than you need to.
If you'd like to understand what a different kind of advice relationship looks like,
book an introductory call. No obligation, no percentage of anything.
You wouldn't accept a restaurant bill based on your salary. You shouldn't have to accept one from your financial adviser either.
