I wouldn’t recommend my route into financial advice.

Not because I regret where I’ve ended up — far from it. I love what I do now. But when I look back at the journey, I genuinely don’t think I’d tell a young person to follow the same path.

I studied actuarial science, so in my mind there was a fairly obvious next step. But like a lot of graduates, that “obvious route” didn’t quite materialise the way I’d imagined. I didn’t land the role I thought I would, so I had to adapt. That took me into banking, then into broader financial services. Then someone advised me to go into paraplanning — I’d never even heard of it before, but they suggested it was the route to take if I wanted to become an adviser. Eventually that led into advice.

I’m grateful for all of it. But it wasn’t a clean pathway.

There was no one sitting me down and saying: here’s the role, here’s the training, here’s how you’ll progress, here’s what you could earn, here’s how long it’ll take, here’s who’ll support you. It was much more uncertain than that. A lot of figuring things out as I went. A lot of trying to understand where I fitted. A lot of wondering whether I was actually moving towards becoming an adviser — or just drifting around the edges of the profession.

That uncertainty takes a toll. Especially when you’re young. Because at that stage of life, you’re not just trying to build technical knowledge. You’re trying to build confidence. You’re trying to earn enough to live — and for me, that was especially crucial because I had a young family to support at the same time. You’re trying to make decisions about your future without having nearly enough information to make them well.

For me, it eventually worked out. But I think that was down to a combination of stubbornness, luck, and finding a few good people along the way. That’s not a pathway. That’s just surviving it.

And we can do better than that.

We say we want more young advisers. We say we want fresh talent. We say we want the profession to grow. But if we mean any of that, we need to be far more honest about what the route in actually looks like — and far more intentional about improving it.

Not just “go and get your exams.” But real answers to real questions. How does someone get exposure to client conversations before they’re thrown into them? How do they develop the soft skills that no exam tests? How do they earn a stable income while they’re still learning, especially when they’ve got dependants relying on them? How do they know they’re progressing, and not just stuck?

There are talented young people out there who would make exceptional financial planners. But talent isn’t enough when the path in is unclear, unsupported, and depends largely on how long someone can hold on through the uncertainty.

I’m glad my journey worked out. I just think the next generation deserves a clearer route than I had.