The wealth management industry is facing a serious talent crisis, according to survey results J.D. Power released this week.
At a moment when more and more self-directed investors are turning to financial advisors for help, 46% of advisors surveyed said they are within a decade of retirement; 26% of currently active ones are already 65 or older.
“The wealth management industry is experiencing a significant generational shift in which the demographics, ways of working and priorities of both clients and advisors are changing rapidly,” Mike Foy, managing director of the wealth management practice at J.D. Power, said in a statement.
Managing this transformation and making strategic investments in technology and brand-building are the industry’s key ways to attract and retain the next generation of advisors and those switching careers, Foy said. They will also influence how new, younger clients seeking professional advice for the first time perceive advisory firms.
J.D. Power’s 2025 U.S. Financial Advisor Satisfaction Study, fielded from December through April, is based on responses from 3,698 employees of broker-dealers and those affiliated with a broker-dealer but operating independently.
The study measures satisfaction among both employee advisors and independent advisors based on six key dimensions: compensation, firm leadership and culture, operational support, products and marketing, professional development, and technology.
Study Findings
Advisors believe that artificial intelligence is the top technology their firms should invest in, according to the survey, with 35% selecting it as the no. 1 priority for increased tech investment by the firm.
J.D. Power said that as firms prioritize AI use cases, they should strongly consider areas such as lead generation and personalized client marketing and nurturing tools that early-career advisors highlight as areas of underinvestment. It noted that overall satisfaction and brand advocacy scores also are significantly higher among advisors who use AI tools.
The survey found that younger advisors consider brand image wanting. Only 20% of advisors younger than 40 said their firm was conscious of its public brand image, compared with 35% of advisors 40 to 64 who described their firm as brand conscious.
J.D. Power said fostering a trusted and relevant brand is fundamental to a firm’s value proposition, especially among younger advisors who are building a practice and cannot yet rely on existing client referrals to generate new business.
The survey also found that social media support for advisors needs improvement. Younger advisors place much more emphasis on social media, advisor websites and search engine optimization than do advisors with longer career tenure who are more focused on webinars and in-person events.
J.D. Power noted that social media stood out as the only area of marketing support in the survey that early career advisors ranked among the most important, with 45% selecting it as a priority for investment. At the same time, these advisors rated current firm support as below average, with just 32% considering it very valuable.
Here are the advisory firms J.D. Power studied, ranked by their levels of advisor satisfaction:
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