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Although Sesame has retained its top spot for the fifth year in a row, the firm's turnover is down from £300m last year to £260m. Runner-up Openwork's revenue plummeted from £295m to £221m.

The tough economic conditions have also pushed some IFA groups further down the league table. Barclays Bank has dropped out of the top five this year after its revenue nose-dived from £160m to £52.5m, giving it a new ranking of fifteenth.

HSBC dropped two places to seventh position.

Chris Cummings, director general of the Association of IFAs, said: "The mortgage market has suffered massively and this has hampered many firms. Of course, the investment market has shown a poor performance and this has had a resulting loss of revenue for firms too.

"A bottom line focus has been essential this year, and will be next year."

Stephen Young, head of sales and marketing for Sesame, said revenues were down about 15 per cent as a result of the economic crisis. However, Mr Young felt this was a good performance.

He said: "If a firm is heavily involved in investment or mortgages then its revenues will be lower."

Openwork's newly appointed chief executive Martin Davis said the group knew it would be a "tough year".

He said: "We are down on our revenues from last year but that is where we thought we would be. Our mortgage volumes have been on the up recently so we are seeing some degree of stability. I think we have hit the bottom so we are cautiously optimistic."

Mr Davis said the main focus for advisers in the past year has been the changing economic environment.

"The financial crisis has meant customers' needs have changed. They are adopting a more defensive approach. Advisers have reacted by broadening their product range. We used to write a lot more mortgages, now our advisers write more pension and protection business."

But not all adviser groups have fared badly this year. There are a number of new names in the top 100 list this year who have managed to enter straight into the top 20.

JLT Benefit Solutions, Rensburg Sheppards Investment Management, Brewin Dolphin Securities and Lloyds TSB Independent Financial Advisers are all new entrants and are positioned in eighth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth spot respectively.

To see this year's Top 100 Financial Advisers, visit www.ftadviser.com/rankings