20 Aug 2026 Platform industry assets rocket to £1.4trn in Q226

An AI bounce and an easing in the US-Israeli war on Iran took the heat out of oil prices and pushed stock markets to new heights, with the S&P 500 and the FTSE All World surging by more than 14%. SpaceX added its own exclamation mark, pulling off the biggest IPO in history and keeping appetite for anything AI-adjacent running hot. The bounce was such that platform assets rose by 9%, breaking through the £1.4trn sound barrier for the first time.

Industry gross sales topped £50bn for the third quarter running, with adviser platforms contributing £27bn of that. On the other side of the ledger, all-channel net sales cooled sharply from last quarter’s £13bn ISA-driven high, but advisers shrugged off domestic and overseas politics with another quarter of robust activity. Early-bird ISA business and the scramble to get ahead of April 2027’s pension IHT changes kept the advice channel’s net-to-gross ratio above 20% for a second straight quarter. Pensions did most of the hard work, but advisers are using a broader palette of tax wrappers with bonds leading the charge – gross sales are up two and a half times since Q223.

On the surface, the industry looks healthy, but cracks are widening beneath it. Aegon led for all-channel gross sales and AJ Bell for net. In the adviser platform channel, Quilter, Aviva and Transact kept their grip on adviser net sales, occupying the podium for the 10th quarter running and taking 85% of adviser net flows thanks to service, pricing and product range.

Bella Caridade-Ferreira, CEO of Fundscape said: “Quilter, Aviva and Transact are getting service right and are making rain while much of the industry is under a hosepipe ban. Quilter is the standout performer with 44% of adviser platform net sales.

“The summer months will be lazy and sultry, but flows will pick up in September as speculation on Healey’s October budget intensifies. And after the drought this country’s had, literally and figuratively, a new budget and a new prime minister could be the oasis everyone’s looking for. The second half of the year won’t match the first, but it’ll probably be watertight.”

– Ends-

Notes to Editors:

The Platform Report is a confidential report published by Fundscape.  To subscribe to the report, platforms must contribute asset and sales data on a quarterly basis. For further information about the report and Fundscape, visit www.fundscape.co.uk.
A total of 18 platforms is included in the analysis. Platform coverage is estimated at 98% of the platform universe.
¹ Hargreaves Lansdown is estimated this quarter.

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