The poll, which asked advisers how many of their clients were in the millennials age group, revealed 67 per cent of respondents said less than 10 per cent.
Millennials are generally considered to be those born between 1981 and around 1997.
Of those who responded, 17 per cent had no millennial, also known as Generation Y, clients.
Jason Hollands, managing director at the Tilney Group, explained: “Investible wealth in the UK is a skewed towards the over 50s and this will be reflected in the client profile of many adviser firms.
“While millennials may be better educated than their parents’ generation, they are also starting working life later, have debts accumulated from the costs of a university education and have had to surmount the hurdle of rising property prices to get a foot on the ladder.”
He added access to advice was also a problem, “as since RDR replaced commission funded advice with explicit fees, many firms have refocused their businesses on more affluent clients as they have better understood client profitability”.
He urged the profession to “engage with this segment”.
“Key to this is better use of technology, both in terms of improving efficiency and enabling firms to deliver solutions at affordable costs, but also because younger people have grown up experiencing digital engagement with companies and service providers so it resonates with them,” he noted.
Only 8 per cent of advisers said more than 25 per cent of their clients were in the millennials age bracket, while another 8 per cent acknowledged 15 to 25 per cent of their client base were of this age.
Dennis Hall, chartered financial planner at Yellowtail Financial Planning, said he was not surprised by the numbers and suggested they reflected the number of financial advisers who were millennials.
“Birds of a feather flock together, so they say, and I think that the majority of Baby Boomer advisers are comfortable advising like-minded people.
“But we should also acknowledge that most millennials aren’t going to need a high level of advice, and with auto-enrolment taking care of the immediate pension issues, they probably only need to dip in on an occasional basis for one-off advice.
“Many of the services they need can be obtained online, remotely and direct from providers,” he pointed out.
A recent report by Royal London on how millennials viewed financial advice and engagement, entitled ‘Pensions through the Ages – The Millennial Mosaic’, concluded millennials do want to receive advice but only as they got older.
It reported 24 per cent of millennials wanted to receive financial advice at age 40, 18 per cent at age 50 and 13 per cent at age 60.
Jamie Clark, business development manager for Royal London Intermediary Pensions commented: “Improving millennials’ understanding of the real benefits and true value of long-term pension savings is where financial advisers can play an important role.
“Some millennials say that engagement should start as early as age 40, not when they’re close to retiring.
“Advisers can play a vital role in tapping into the financial needs of millennials at an earlier age than perhaps would normally be the case as there is clearly an appetite for advice.”
Mr Hall added: “With age comes complexity, and bigger numbers. There’s a level where people think they can do things on their own, but when the sums become larger, they start to feel they need a second opinion, or they become too busy… that it makes sense to engage an adviser.”
eleanor.duncan@ft.com
