David Mead, managing director for Flexible-mortgage.net, said the industry as a whole needed to address the situation now and that if networks and larger brokerages had not already looked at the issue, they must do so soon.
He pointed to Personal Touch Finance and Mortgage Times academies as examples the industry needed to follow.
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Mead said: “So many people want to get into the industry, but there are not enough people who want to train them. Obviously, only a few businesses can afford to train people, but the lack of new blood coming into the industry is an ongoing issue, as the average age of brokers is around 50 years old.
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“We’re a medium-sized company and we trained 10 people last year and are taking on a further 10 this year. The least of our problems is finding the right people. Just from a local advert we get 40-50 respondents, so you can imagine what the response could be nationally.”
Phil Hall, press and public affairs managers for ifs School of Finance, commented: “We have seen 150,000 people take CeMap exams in the last 10 years and there are around 55,000 advisers, so as people retire it seems they are being replaced. The industry must do its utmost to get new blood in. We are moving in the the right direction; whether that is sufficient only time will tell.”
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