Professional Adviser commissioned research from Best Companies Group to find out which financial advisers in the UK with 15 or more full-time staff are the best to work for. The top companies were celebrated at the Professional Adviser Awards 2025 earlier this year. HFMC Wealth enters the awards every other year and has been previously recognised as a winner in 2023, 2021 and 2019 showing incredible consistency. Further details about the awards and winners can be found at The 20 Best Financial Advisers to Work For in 2025.
Twenty firms made the grade in 2025, based not just on employer feedback, but even more importantly on responses from their employees which is delivered on an anonymous basis.
Professional Adviser recognises that it is important to know if employees feel connected to their organisation, if they were willing to go the extra mile, and if they enjoyed coming to work most days.
Most research suggests that only about 40% of employees can say “yes” to these questions. In contrast, 91% of the Best Financial Adviser Firm to work for staff were engaged. For HFMC Wealth there was an engagement score of an incredible 97% in the Employee Survey.
The results reveal what makes a great financial advice employer and shine a light on areas that other firms could look to improve on.
For instance, 80% of the best employers conduct employee performance reviews at least twice a year, with half of these doing them even more frequently.
Only a third of other firms that put themselves forwards carried these out twice a year, with the remaining two thirds doing them just once annually. HFMC listens to its staff at at least a quarterly interval!
Training and development were also key differentiators. Some 87% of employees at the top-ranked firms said they had sufficient training opportunities to develop in their careers on average, compared to 77% at companies that didn’t make the cut. At HFMC the score was an impressive 93% in 2025 reflecting an uplift from the prior years results where the score was in the 80s.
Most (85%) of the top firms offer an employee assistance programme making counselling available to staff versus just 50% of other firms. HFMC provides an employee assistance programme, and has just enhanced its employee benefits further with improvements to maternity, paternity and adoption leave.
Firms that have made the grade serve as shining examples to the rest of the profession on how to attract, and perhaps even more crucially retain, staff. We are so proud to e recognised yet again as one of these firms.
