While some numbers show that assets and revenues are rising, it also points to margin pressures, and lacklustre organic growth.

Market gains in 2025 propelled UK wealth sector assets higher but organic growth, which excludes the effect of M&A, was muted last year, with spending on marketing declining or remaining relatively low a new study shows. Wealth managers and private banks enjoyed a slight gain in margins last year. 

The figures come from The State of UK Wealth Management report by BWC Benchmarking, issued today. The study tracks a total of 159 firms and draws more than 200 points per firm. There are 125 full-service wealth managers and investment managers, 23 private banks and 11 execution-only stockbrokers.

Last year, there was 1.5 per cent organic growth in net flows, decelerating from the 3.2 per cent outturn in 2024.

The figures, which pinpointed the forces at work on the UK’s wealth sector, were issued in the report at a launch event hosted by Rathbones, the wealth manager, in the latter’s City offices in London. (WealthBriefing is a partner organisation with BWC Benchmarking.)

“After 20 years of analysing this industry, the UK wealth management sector continues to deliver thought-provoking results,” James Brown, CEO of BWC Benchmarking, told WealthBriefing. “Year after year it achieves record-breaking values, highlighting its resilience to perform in all market conditions. To do this firms are having to adapt at an increasingly fast pace, whether it be by remodelling their charging structures, changing the shape of the front office by being more financial planning led, or by investing heavily in new technologies to keep pace with other industries in financial services and to drive front office productivity.

“This therefore portrays a very healthy industry. But when you take a deeper dive into the results you see cracks appearing and a huge variance from one firm to the next – that is where the fascination grows as a statistician reviewing this group of businesses,” Brown said.

Some of the figures give clues as to why there has been a strong level of industry consolidation in recent years as firms seek to acquire economies of scale to shoulder costs of rising demand for technology, expand into new fields, build brands and handle regulatory change.

A rising tide
Rising markets in 2025 accounted for much of the rise in total invested assets over the year, the report said. Total sector investment assets reached £1.73 trillion ($2.31 trillion) at the end of 2025, rising from £1.54 trillion a year before and up from £1.38 trillion at the end of 2021. Last year, full-service wealth managers and investment managers held £751 billion in assets; private banks held £538 billion and execution-only brokers made up the difference, at £440 billion. In 2025, market movements accounted for £106 billion of the total gain by wealth managers and private banks. (The execution-only brokerage figures were excluded from that calculation.)

Figures showed that firms tracked spend relatively modestly on marketing as a share of revenue when put against other sectors such as luxury watches and consumer goods. For example, in 2025, marketing spending was 4.74 per cent for execution-only brokers and 2.77 per cent for private banks and wealth managers. In 2024, the figures were 5.18 per cent and 2.98 per cent, respectively. 

Even with a sector that often likes to boast of its ability to spread its messages by word of mouth and via intermediaries, the figures suggest that the sector might be missing a chance to raise its marketing game. In the luxury watches sector, BWC Benchmarking said marketing spending as a share of revenue ranges from 7 to 10 per cent and for consumer goods, the gap is even wider at 10 to 20 per cent. For luxury goods, the range is 3 to 5 per cent. 

Rising assets have propelled revenues: the total for three main types of business category stood at £11.1 billion last year, rising from £10.28 billion a year before. On the flipside, costs also rose to £8.43 billion in 2025 from £7.913 billion. IT, as a share of total revenue, was the highest chunk of cost, at 7.48 per cent and revenues rose 10 per cent last year from a year before. Compliance and risk accounted for a relatively modest 2.03 per cent of revenues as a cost area, but surged year-on-year by 32 per cent. 

Margins
Figures showed that on average, margins earned by private banks and wealth managers crept higher in 2025: wealth managers’ margins rose to 18.6 per cent from 16.9 per cent a year earlier; and private bank margins rose to 25.2 per cent from 24.1 per cent. However, execution-only brokers’ margins tightened to 35.5 per cent from 37.3 per cent. 

Concerningly, however, figures showed that 26 per cent of private banks made a loss, as did 12 per cent of full-service wealth managers and investment firms, with 18 per cent of execution-only brokers also in the red. Just over a third (36 per cent) made a margin of more than 40 per cent. Some 33 per cent of wealth managers achieved a margin of 20 to 40 per cent, and 39 per cent of private banks did so. At a presentation about the statistics in London yesterday, BWC's Brown said the loss figures might have looked far more serious if markets had not risen this year.

On a positive note, data shows an increase in front office productivity since 2023, with improvements for margins, managed assets and planning fees. Staffing is also rising: in 2025, a total of 45,079 people worked in the sector, up from 44,132. Within this mix, however, execution-only stockbroker headcount declined to 6,464 from 6,488.

In drawing up the survey, each business needed to have at least £50 million of investment assets to be included.