Platform assets reached a record high in 2025 hitting £1.3trn, recording the largest single-year gain in the industry’s history, at £178bn.
Gross flows also climbed to a high of £191bn, surpassing even the bumper year of 2021, according to figures set to be published in Fundscape’s next platform report.
Adviser platforms drove much of the growth, the firm said, contributing £98bn in asset gains and a record £97bn in gross flows.
But 2025 was also a tale of two halves, the firm said. Rising markets and falling interest rates lifted investor sentiment in the first half of the year, only for Budget anxiety to strike in the second half.
For the second year running, the prospect of tax changes triggered a wave of lump-sum withdrawals, leaving quarterly SIPP net sales to fall to their worst level since 2012 and dragging net flows on adviser platforms to a two-year low of £3bn.
Despite this, annual net flows of £36.3bn were a solid improvement on 2024’s £28.7bn, the firm said.
Source: Fundscape
Bella Caridade-Ferreira, Fundscape CEO, said: “Advisers and investors have become battle-hardened over the past few years and are far more stoical about geopolitical turbulence than they once were. That resilience is showing up in the numbers.”
She said the road ahead has its hazards. “Geopolitical risks, the ongoing fallout from successive Budgets and the lingering uncertainty around pension taxation could yet weigh on sentiment. But the structural case remains compelling.
“The complexity created by two years of fiscal change will drive demand for advice and put assets on an upward trajectory. In our realistic scenario, we expect all-platform assets to reach £2.4trn by 2030, with the adviser component hitting £1.5trn.”
Source: Fundscape
The Platform Report is a confidential report published by Fundscape UK Ltd. A total of 18 platforms is included in the analysis. Platform coverage is estimated at 98% of the platform universe. The full report is due to be published on 5 March.