What does it cost to hire a paraplanner in the UK?

A paraplanner on the advertised average salary of about £43,500 costs a UK advice firm around £50,393 a year, once about £5,775 of employer National Insurance and £1,118 of minimum pension contributions are added, and about £52,393 in the first year with recruitment; software, exams and cover come on top. The salary is Reed's average of the paraplanner adverts on its site on the day we read it, 3 October 2026, in a range of roughly £39,000 to £49,500, rounded to the nearest five hundred pounds, and it moves daily. The National Careers Service gives £24,000 for a starter and £45,000 with experience.

How much is a paraplanner paid?

The ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings is the usual place to start, but it has no line for paraplanners. Its coding index puts "paraplanner", "financial planner" and "chartered financial planner" in one group, "Finance and investment analysts and advisers" (SOC 2020 code 2422), and ASHE 2025 gives that group a full-time median of £50,330. Advisers and analysts lead the group, so its median is likely to overstate a paraplanner's pay. The advertised figure is the better guide to the title, though it is pay offered rather than pay paid, and the National Careers Service range shows how far a trainee sits below it. Check both against adverts for the level you need, in your area.

What does an advice firm pay on top of the salary?

• Employer National Insurance. The 2026 to 2027 rate is 15% of pay above the £5,000 secondary threshold: £5,775 on £43,500. An eligible firm can set up to £10,500 of Employment Allowance against its employer NI for the year, so a small practice with allowance left pays less than this on the hire.

• Pension. At least 3% of qualifying earnings under automatic enrolment, counted between £6,240 and £50,270 a year. On the Reed average that is £1,118 a year.

• Holiday. The legal minimum is 5.6 weeks' paid holiday, 28 days for a full-timer, so the salary pays for about 46 working weeks before sickness, study leave and exam days.

• Recruitment. The CIPD's Resourcing and talent planning report 2026 has a median cost per hire of £2,000 for employees below senior management. It is a CIPD survey median from a small sample (223 employers, each estimating to within a fifth) and it spans every kind of role; if you fill this one through a specialist agency, the fee alone may be more. With the CIPD median added, the first year comes to about £52,393.

The sum leaves out a licence for the back-office system and the cash flow tool, the cost of the exams and study support a good paraplanner expects, and the adviser hours that go into the hire and the handover. The on-costs of any other post are in what it costs to employ someone in the UK.

What does a paraplanner do all week?

A paraplanner does the technical work behind advice, researching funds and products, running the cash flow analysis and writing the suitability report, and gives the advisers the admin support that keeps a file moving. In a small firm the last part grows until it crowds out the rest. The paraplanner chases the client for the half-finished fact-find, chases three providers for replies to letters of authority, collates the plan valuations when they arrive, keeps the record in Intelliflo Office or Xplan up to date and builds the annual review pack from the same sources every year. Advisers hire a paraplanner so that they can spend the week with clients. Then the paraplanner spends the week chasing.

Can AI do part of a paraplanner's job?

An AI worker can take the chasing and the collating. In a financial advice firm an AI worker can watch the fact-find and draft the prompt to the client for what is missing, prepare letters of authority for approval and chase providers for their replies, collate what comes back against the fact-find, keep the client record current and assemble the first draft of the review pack for a person to check. It drafts and reminds, and it never advises. The line is paperwork, never advice.

What stays with a person?

Everything that is advice, including the research, the recommendation, the reasons for it and the suitability assessment, stays with the paraplanner and the adviser. Any question a client asks about their money or their options goes to a person. Every phone call to a client or a provider is made by a person. In a firm regulated by the FCA, an AI worker sends a client nothing the adviser has not approved, and the adviser approves the report and sends it. An AI worker gives more of the paraplanner's week to technical work, and takes none of the judgement.

Is the hire for technical work or for chasing?

List what the paraplanner you are about to hire will do, and mark each item as technical work or chasing. If the chasing is the reason for the hire, look at an AI worker before you advertise, and your existing paraplanner gets the technical week back. If the technical work is the reason, hire the paraplanner, and give the chasing to an AI worker so the new person starts from complete files. How AI staff compare with hiring an administrator sets the two side by side, and the sums for a general administrator are in what it costs to hire an administrator. For the price we start from, see the homepage.

In an advice firm weighing up a paraplanner, an AI worker would do the chasing and collating around the advice, and an adviser would approve every word that goes to a client. How much of your paraplanner's week goes on letters of authority rather than suitability reports? Talk to our AI agent.