What They Do: Personal financial advisors provide advice to help individuals manage their finances and plan for their financial future.
Work Environment: Most personal financial advisors work in the finance and insurance industry or are self-employed. They typically work full time and may meet with clients in the evenings or on weekends.
How to Become One: Personal financial advisors typically need a bachelor’s degree. A master’s degree and certification can improve one’s chances for advancement in the occupation.
Salary: The median annual wage for personal financial advisors is $94,170.
Job Outlook: Employment of personal financial advisors is projected to grow 15 percent over the next ten years, much faster than the average for all occupations.
Related Careers: Compare the job duties, education, job growth, and pay of personal financial advisors with similar occupations.
Personal financial advisors provide advice on investments, insurance, mortgages, college savings, estate planning, taxes, and retirement to help individuals manage their finances.
Personal financial advisors typically do the following:
Personal financial advisors assess the financial needs of individuals and help them with decisions on investments (such as stocks and bonds), tax laws, and insurance. Advisors help clients plan for short- and long-term goals, such as meeting education expenses and saving for retirement through investments. They invest clients' money based on the clients' decisions. Many advisors also provide tax advice or sell insurance.
Although most planners offer advice on a wide range of topics, some specialize in areas such as retirement or risk management (evaluating how willing the investor is to take chances and adjusting investments accordingly).
Many personal financial advisors spend a lot of time marketing their services, and they meet potential clients by giving seminars or participating in business and social networking. Networking is the process of meeting and exchanging information with people, or groups of people, who have similar interests.
After financial advisors have invested funds for a client, they and the client receive regular investment reports. Advisors monitor the client's investments and usually meet with each client at least once a year to update the client on potential investments and to adjust the financial plan based on the client's circumstances or because investment options may have changed.
Many personal financial advisors are licensed to directly buy and sell financial products, such as stocks, bonds, annuities, and insurance. Depending on the agreement they have with their clients, personal financial advisors may have the client's permission to make decisions about buying and selling stocks and bonds.
Private bankers or wealth managers are personal financial advisors who work for people who have a lot of money to invest. These clients are similar to institutional investors (commonly, companies or organizations), and they approach investing differently than the general public does. Private bankers manage a collection of investments, called a portfolio, for these clients by using the resources of the bank, including teams of financial analysts, accountants, and other professionals.
Personal financial advisors hold about 330,300 jobs. The largest employers of personal financial advisors are as follows:
| Securities, commodity contracts, and other financial investments and related activities | 59% |
| Self-employed workers | 19% |
| Credit intermediation and related activities | 15% |
| Insurance carriers and related activities | 3% |
| Management of companies and enterprises | 1% |
Personal financial advisors typically work in offices. Some also travel to attend conferences, teach finance seminars in the evening, and attend networking events to bring in more clients.
Most personal financial advisors work full time and some work more than 40 hours per week. They often go to meetings on evenings and weekends to meet with prospective or existing clients.
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Personal financial advisors typically need a bachelor's degree. A master's degree and certification can improve one's chances for advancement in the occupation.
Personal financial advisors typically need a bachelor's degree. Although employers usually do not require personal financial advisors to have completed a specific course of study, a degree in finance, economics, accounting, business, mathematics, or law is good preparation for this occupation. Courses in investments, taxes, estate planning, and risk management are also helpful. Programs in financial planning are becoming more available in colleges and universities.
Once they are hired, personal financial advisors often enter an on-the-job training period. During this time, new advisors work under the supervision of senior advisors and learn how to perform their duties, including building a client network and developing investment portfolios. This training usually lasts for more than a year.
Personal financial advisors who directly buy or sell stocks, bonds, or insurance policies, or who provide specific investment advice, need a combination of licenses that varies with the products they sell. In addition to being required to have those licenses, advisors in smaller firms that manage clients' investments must be registered with state regulators and those in larger firms must be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Personal financial advisors who choose to sell insurance need licenses issued by state boards. Information on state licensing board requirements for registered investment advisors is available from the North American Securities Administrators Association.
Certifications can enhance a personal financial advisor's reputation and can help bring in new clients. The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards offers the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) certification. For this certification, advisors must have a bachelor's degree, complete at least 3 years of relevant work experience, pass an exam, and agree to adhere to a code of ethics. The CFP exam covers the general principles of financial planning, insurance planning, risk management, employee benefits planning, income taxes and retirement planning, investment and real estate planning, debt management, planning liability, emergency fund reserves, and statistical modeling.
A master's degree in an area such as finance or business administration can improve a personal financial advisor's chances of moving into a management position and attracting new clients.
Analytical skills. In determining an investment portfolio for a client, personal financial advisors must be able to take into account a range of information, including economic trends, regulatory changes, and the client's comfort with risky decisions.
Interpersonal skills. A major part of a personal financial advisor's job is making clients feel comfortable. Advisors must establish trust with clients and respond well to their questions and concerns.
Math skills. Personal financial advisors should be good at mathematics because they constantly work with numbers. They determine the amount invested, how that amount has grown or decreased over time, and how a portfolio is distributed among different investments.
Sales skills. To expand their base of clients, personal financial advisors must be convincing and persistent in selling their services.
Speaking skills. Personal financial advisors interact with clients every day. They must explain complex financial concepts in understandable language.
The median annual wage for personal financial advisors is $94,170. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $47,570, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $208,000.
The median annual wages for personal financial advisors in the top industries in which they work are as follows:
| Securities, commodity contracts, and other financial investments and related activities | $99,970 |
| Management of companies and enterprises | $79,780 |
| Credit intermediation and related activities | $76,620 |
| Insurance carriers and related activities | $69,410 |
Personal financial advisors who work for financial services firms are often paid a salary plus bonuses. Bonuses are not included in the wage data here.
Advisors who work for financial investment firms or financial planning firms, or who are self-employed, typically earn their money by charging a percentage of the clients' assets that they manage. They also may earn money by charging an hourly fee or by getting fees on stock and insurance purchases. In addition to their fees, advisors generally get commissions for financial products that they sell.
Most personal financial advisors work full time and some work more than 40 hours per week. They often go to meetings on evenings and weekends to meet with existing clients or to try to bring in new ones.
Employment of personal financial advisors is projected to grow 15 percent over the next ten years, much faster than the average for all occupations.
Despite limited employment growth, about 30,500 openings for personal financial advisors are projected each year, on average, over the decade. Many of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire.
The primary driver of employment growth will be the aging population. As large numbers of baby boomers approach retirement, more are likely to seek planning advice from personal financial advisors. Also, longer lifespans will lead to longer retirement periods, further increasing demand for financial planning services.
In addition, the replacement of traditional pension plans with individual retirement accounts is expected to continue. Many people used to receive defined pension payments in retirement, but most companies no longer offer these plans. Therefore, individuals must save and invest for their own retirement, increasing the demand for personal financial advisors.
The emergence of "robo-advisors," computer programs that provide automated investment advice based on user inputs, will partially temper demand for personal financial advisors. However, the impact of this technology should be limited as consumers continue turning to human advisors for more complex and specialized investment advice over the next 10 years.
| Occupational Title | Employment, 2021 | Projected Employment, 2031 | Change, 2021-31 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percent | Numeric | |||
| Personal financial advisors | 330,300 | 381,200 | 15 | 50,900 |
For more information about personal financial advisors, visit
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)
North American Securities Administrators Association
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
A portion of the information on this page is used by permission of the U.S. Department of Labor.