It is no secret there is a shortage of financial planners in the UK.

In the 1990s, there were well over 200,000 financial planners in the UK, but the introduction of legislation such as the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) has seen people leave the profession in droves.

While it could be argued that it is a positive to see poor practitioners driven out of the industry, there are now far too few planners remaining: An estimated 25 percent of the UK population require financial advice, but there are only about 25,000 planners serving this group, with the number falling by about 10 percent a year.

And it is this ...