Assets held on UK advised platforms grew by 9.24% in the second quarter of 2026, the highest quarterly growth rate since Q2 2020, according to the latest platform market scorecard from financial services consultancy the lang cat. The surge reflects a broad market recovery after geopolitical turbulence in the Middle East weighed on returns in the first three months of the year.

Gross sales came in at £25.88bn for the quarter, a modest decline of 2.72% on a record-breaking Q1 2026, yet still the second-best quarter for new business flows in the lang cat’s data series. Outflows held flat at £18.53bn, unchanged from the prior quarter after a sharp reduction in Q1 that followed a peak in Budget-related pension withdrawals in Q4 2025. Net sales for the quarter reached £7.36bn, down 8.95% on Q1 but comfortably above the levels seen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered a sustained period of inflation, rising interest rates and heightened investor caution.

ISAs and the IHT effect

Rich Mayor, senior analyst at the lang cat, pointed to ISA sales as a particular driver in Q2. “Under the bonnet, the advised sector continues to have strong new business numbers, with this quarter the second-best on our books,” he said. “This quarter in particular we’re seeing really good ISA sales and it feels logical that there’s some reinvestment from the spike in Budget pension withdrawals washing through as new tax year subscriptions become available.”

Mayor also identified a structural shift in how net sales are composed. Pensions continue to command the largest share of flows, but ISAs, general investment accounts and bonds are now splitting the remainder in roughly equal measure. He described that as a newer trend, shaped in part by advisers and clients beginning to plan proactively for inheritance tax on unspent pension pots, following the government’s Autumn 2024 Budget announcement that unused pension funds will fall within the IHT regime from 2027. “This means some fundamental changes to retirement planning for more clients and we’re seeing that play out meaningfully in platform flows now,” Mayor said.

Market context

The Q2 results sit within a broader pattern that will be familiar to platform operators and wealth managers. The first half of 2025 saw a similar cadence: a weak first quarter driven by external shock, followed by a rebound as markets stabilised. The 2026 sequence replicated that shape, with US tariff turbulence suppressing Q1 growth and a Middle East conflict adding to uncertainty before equities recovered through April and June.

The advised platform market in the UK is a concentrated segment, dominated by a small number of large providers and subject to ongoing fee-transparency scrutiny from the FCA as part of its Consumer Duty review of investment product value. Platform operators will read the Q2 numbers as validation of the wrap model’s resilience, but the structural IHT-driven change in client behaviour flagged by Mayor is likely to generate sustained pressure on product design, particularly around pension decumulation tools and cross-wrapper reporting.

David Moffat, executive chair of The Platforms Association, said the figures showed advisers and clients “defying both political and taxation uncertainty at home and geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East to commit over £7bn of new investment monies across both pension and ISA wrappers.”

The lang cat’s scorecard contains estimates for some participants. True Potential is reported a quarter in arrears, Raymond James figures are partial estimates while acquisition integration continues, and M&G Wealth numbers are excluded from the dataset.

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