James Goad, Founder, Owen James

Conversations with senior leaders across recent Owen James events reveal that advice businesses are targeting average growth of 17 % over the next three years. They are not short of opportunity either. Intergenerational wealth transfer, increasingly complex retirement planning and changing client demographics are all expanding demand for professional advice. Yet despite this favourable backdrop, firms delivered organic growth of just 0.9 % in 2025.

This disconnect has become one of the defining themes emerging from discussions across the industry. Increasingly, the question isn ' t whether firms want to grow, but whether their operating models are capable of supporting that ambition.

The gap between aspiration and execution is beginning to look less like a short-term challenge and more like a structural one.

The market isn’ t the problem

If anything, firms are operating in one of the most favourable markets the profession has seen for years. An ageing population, the transfer of wealth between generations, and increasingly complex retirement decisions are all creating greater demand for financial advice.

Yet industry conversations point to a different challenge. Rather than worrying about where the next client will come from, firms are questioning whether they have the capacity to serve them. Adviser shortages, operational complexity, regulatory requirements and fragmented technology are emerging as the real barriers to growth.

This is echoed in the Festival of Finance agenda, which frames the industry’ s central tension clearly: we’ re not dealing with a market shortage. We’ re dealing with a delivery problem.

And that delivery problem shows up in two places: how firms grow, and how they operate.

August 2026 | 13