Shifting demographics in the Advice Sector

17 April, 2026

Trend forming Issues:

Australia’s Financial Adviser population has stabilised around the mid-15,000s, with Adviser Ratings reporting 15,575 advisers at Q1 2025, while ASIC said 15,610 providers were on the Financial Advisers Register as at 28 May 2025.

For the AFSL sector, the practising adviser population appears older than it was a few years ago, while the wider occupation base remains male-skewed and older than the national workforce.

Adviser Ratings also says 78.2% of advisers now sit in privately owned licensees, which is a major structural shift away from institutional models. ([Riskinfo][1])

On age, there are two different but useful lenses.

Adviser Ratings’ advice-industry dataset says the average adviser is 52 years old in its 2024 Landscape work, up from 49 previously. By contrast, the broader ABS / Jobs and Skills Australia occupation profile for Financial Investment Advisers shows a median age of 43 and 33% female share.

The broader "Financial Investment Advisers and Managers” grouping shows a median age of 44 and 40% female share. ([Adviser Ratings][2])

Education data is also strong.

Jobs and Skills Australia shows 26.4% of Financial Investment Advisers hold a postgraduate / grad diploma / grad certificate, 43.2% hold a bachelor degree, and 18.9% hold an advanced diploma / diploma. That means roughly 88.5% of workers in the occupation hold diploma level or above, which supports a point that the profession has become more qualified and more formalised over time. ([Jobs and Skills Australia][3])

In simple terms, roughly 4 in 10 Advisers are Degree Qualified. This is set to increase significantly.

Geographically;

The cleanest public data is state-based, not a simple metro-versus-regional split. Jobs and Skills Australia shows Financial Investment Advisers are concentrated in NSW (33.3%), Victoria (29.7%) and Queensland (18.0%)** on 2021 Census data.

We do not currently have a strong current public source of advisers the live regionally vs capital metro for the advice profession specifically.

A better regional angle is service density: Adviser Ratings says Australia averages about 991 people per adviser, but some regional zones are far thinner; for example, the Capital Region around the ACT had 3,159 people per adviser in its analysis, which is a much stronger way to frame regional under-servicing. ([Jobs and Skills Australia][3])

The average adviser is in a 1–10 adviser practice

earns about $140,000
manages 129 total clients
including 97 recurring clients
and has about $89 million FUA

The typical practice is privately owned, generates more than $500,000 in annual revenue, and runs around a 21% profit margin. ([Adviser Ratings][2])

Our Viewpoint

The advice sector is getting older, more qualified, more privately owned, and more concentrated in smaller independent practices — while regional servicing gaps remain real, alongside supply chain and training in the industry.