We’re delighted to share that Niche Private Clients has won two awards at the Money Marketing Awards 2026:
🏆 Advice Firm of the Year
🏆 Next Generation Advice Firm of the Year
We went into the evening shortlisted in three categories, alongside some excellent firms from across the financial advice profession.
Coming away with two awards would have been special in any circumstances. To be named Advice Firm of the Year, alongside Next Generation Advice Firm of the Year, makes the recognition particularly meaningful to us.
Because, in many ways, the two awards represent two sides of the same thing.
Building a different kind of financial planning firm
Over the last few years, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what a modern financial planning firm should look like. Not simply how we introduce more technology into existing processes, but how we can design the business around the people we serve.
That has involved investment in our client portal, our internal systems and the way information moves around the business.
It has meant looking at how our advisers, technical teams and client support colleagues collaborate. And it has meant continually asking whether there is a better, simpler or more efficient way of doing something.
Technology has been an important part of that work. But technology has never been the objective. The objective is a better experience for our clients.
Technology should improve the client experience, not become it
Financial planning can involve a significant amount of information.
Investments, pensions, tax planning, trusts, businesses, property, estate planning and family considerations can all form part of the same financial picture.
For some clients, there may also be accountants, solicitors, investment specialists and other professional advisers involved.
Technology can help bring that information together.
It can make processes more efficient, improve access to information and reduce some of the administrative work involved in delivering advice. That matters for another reason too: cost.
If technology enables a financial planning firm to operate more efficiently, those efficiencies can ultimately support better value for clients and allow advisers to spend more time on the areas where they add the greatest value.
- The conversations.
- The decisions.
- The judgement.
- And the relationship that develops from understanding someone’s circumstances over many years.
As our Co-Managing Director, Matt Wiltshire, puts it:
“Technology shouldn’t be the client experience. It should make the client experience better.”
Advice is still fundamentally about people
That is perhaps why receiving the Advice Firm of the Year award alongside the Next Generation award means so much to us. However sophisticated the technology becomes, financial planning remains deeply personal.
Many of the clients we work with have reached a point where their financial lives have become increasingly complex.
- Their careers have developed.
- Businesses have grown or been sold.
- Investments have accumulated.
- Families and priorities have changed.
At that point, having more information isn't necessarily the answer. Often what matters is having somebody who understands the whole picture.
- Someone who can bring different strands together.
- Someone who can explain the implications of a decision.
- Someone who can coordinate with the other professionals involved.
- And someone who remains alongside you when circumstances change and the financial plan needs to change with them.
That is what Niche Private Clients is here to provide.
A whole-team achievement
Although only a handful of us were on stage collecting the awards, delivering that kind of service takes a much bigger team.
There is a great deal of work involved in financial planning that clients may never directly see.
- Research.
- Technical analysis.
- Administration.
- Compliance.
- Operations.
- Technology.
- Client support.
And the countless conversations between colleagues that help ensure somebody has the information they need at the right moment.
Winning these awards is recognition of that collective effort.
As Aled Phillips, Co-Managing Director, says:
“Everything we build ultimately has to come back to the client.
“Delivering the experience we want for our clients takes far more than the adviser sitting in front of them. There is an enormous amount of work happening behind the scenes every day.
“These awards belong to that whole team, and we’re enormously grateful to our clients for continuing to put their trust in us.”
Growing Niche without losing sight of why we exist
Another important part of Niche’s development has been our focus on organic growth.
Growth matters to any business. But we don’t believe growth should come at the expense of the quality of the advice, the service our clients receive or the culture of the firm providing it.
As Niche continues to develop, the challenge is therefore not simply to become bigger.
- It is to keep improving.
- To use technology intelligently.
- To create efficiencies where they genuinely benefit clients.
- To invest in our people.
And to make sure that, as the firm grows, clients continue to feel that somebody understands their circumstances and cares about what happens next.
We were therefore particularly pleased to hear those themes reflected in the early feedback surrounding the awards.
Advice Firm of the Year 2026
There is still plenty we want to build, develop and improve. We suspect there always will be. But occasionally it is worth stopping and recognising how far you have come.
Being named Next Generation Advice Firm of the Year would have given us one of those moments.
Being named Advice Firm of the Year on the same evening gave us another.
We’re incredibly proud of the whole Niche team. And, above all, we’re grateful to the clients who continue to trust us with something as important as their financial future.
Advice Firm of the Year 2026.
Next Generation Advice Firm of the Year 2026.
We might allow ourselves to enjoy those two for a little while.
