As financial priorities become increasingly complex, the role of the wealth planner has grown far beyond traditional financial advice. Today’s leading advisers are expected not only to help clients grow and preserve their assets, but also to develop long-term strategies that reflect changing personal circumstances, family considerations and evolving tax and regulatory environments. For affluent individuals and families, effective wealth planning has become an essential part of safeguarding financial security across generations.
The Spear’s Wealth Planners Index highlights the advisers and firms regarded as leaders in this increasingly sophisticated field. These professionals work closely with clients to create tailored financial roadmaps, covering areas such as retirement planning, education funding, succession arrangements and tax efficiency, while adapting strategies as circumstances and legislation change over time.
[See also: So you’re going to be rich, what do you do now?]
Explore the other rankings within the Wealth Management Indices 2026:
Related
- Best UHNW Wealth Managers
- Best HNW Wealth Managers
- Best Wealth Managers: Jersey
- Best Wealth Managers: Guernsey
- Best Wealth Managers: Switzerland
- Best Wealth Managers: Middle East
- Best Family Office Advisory & Consultancy
- Best Family Office Banking & Investment Services
- Best Generational Wealth and Family Business Advisers
Although the terms ‘wealth planner’ and ‘wealth manager’ are often used interchangeably, their focus can differ. Wealth planners typically concentrate on broader lifestyle and long-term financial planning, whereas wealth managers are more commonly associated with investment management and the complex structuring needs of high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients.
This year, the wealth planning sector continues to evolve in response to shifting economic conditions, increased scrutiny of taxation and growing demand for holistic advice. Clients are placing greater emphasis on intergenerational planning, international mobility and resilience in uncertain markets, prompting advisers to offer more integrated and highly personalised services than ever before.
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[See also: The 2026 Spear’s wealth management survey]
Click the links below to jump to a section of this article
- Methodology
- The best wealth planners in 2026: some names to know
- The best wealth planners in 2026: the complete list
- Contact us
Methodology
Each year, the Spear’s Research Unit reassesses and refreshes its rankings of the leading providers in each sector by gathering data from and about the advisers and firms themselves, assessing submission forms, collating nominations, carrying out peer reviews, reviewing data from third-party sources, gathering references and recommendations, canvassing experts and conducting hundreds of interviews.
Advisers are evaluated using a proprietary scoring system that assigns different weightings to certain attributes. These scores feed directly into each new set of rankings in the Spear’s Indices. Each of these indices are published first online (according to the research calendar) and then in print. Print publication takes the form of the annual Spear’s 500 directory, which includes the top advisers in every index.
[See also: A guide to The Spear’s 500: Everything you need to know]
Each featured adviser is profiled on spears500.com. The site allows users to search the Spear’s database of more than 4,000 entities to find one (or more) to meet their specific requirements by filtering for specific attributes such as an adviser’s location, their specialist expertise and information about their client base.
Best wealth planners: some names to know
Ola Adeosun
- Focus: Entrepreneurial families
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: LGT Wealth Management
Ola Adeosun is head of regional wealth planning and family governance at LGT Wealth Management, helping HNW and UHNW entrepreneurial families navigate their business, ownership and family structures.
Many of Adeosun’s clients are UHNWs who have multigenerational intentions with regards to the transfer of their wealth. ‘It’s not as straightforward and simple as establishing the right structures to transition wealth,’ he tells Spear’s. Rather, he works with families on next-generation education and engagement, discussing roles and responsibilities in relation to wealth and business to ultimately develop a long-term strategy that accounts for each family’s unique dynamics.
Read Ola Adeosun’s full profile on Spears500.com
Jeremy Hoyland
- Focus: Total client care
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: HFMC Wealth
HFMC Wealth began with a simple but powerful vision that Jeremy Hoyland wrote down back in 1986: a wish to build ‘the highest-quality financial management business in the country, based around the principle of total client care’.
Today, Hoyland prides himself on being a ‘planning-led firm’. He tells Spear’s: ‘I think what clients really believe in and engage with is the fact that we’re very focused on understanding their fundamental financial objectives, and then build a flexible planning environment, where we can work with them to establish their priorities as they shift.’ All manner of (U)HNWs approach the firm, from private equity professionals to barristers and even film directors.
Read Jeremy Hoyland’s full profile on Spears500.com
Sophie Dworetzsky
- Focus: Wealth protection
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Lombard Odier
Sophie Dworetzsky joined Lombard Odier as head of wealth planning UK in September 2025, building upon a career that includes roles at two of the country’s leading private client law firms: Charles Russell Speechlys, where she was a partner for six years, and Withers, where she spent over 15 years.
Her practice spans wealth structuring, succession planning, international governance and asset protection – the last of which is a constant thread running through her conversations with clients. ‘People are always worried about financial predators and asset protection,’ she tells Spear’s.
Read Sophie Dworetzsky’s full profile on Spears500.com
Chris Allen
- Focus: Intergenerational planning
- Ranking: Top Recommended
- Firm: Arbuthnot Latham
Chris Allen is head of wealth planning at Arbuthnot Latham, advising clients on all aspects of their business and personal wealth. This includes investment strategy, retirement planning and inheritance tax planning, as well as wealth protection.
‘We want to give true intergenerational planning, not just looking at one person and the money they have in their bank account,’ Allen tells Spear’s. ‘It’s about looking at their whole family, looking left and right at their family tree, and up and down.’
Arbuthnot Latham, which won UK Private Bank of the Year at the 2025 Spear’s Awards, attracts entrepreneurs – whether they are building wealth or have recently exited their business – and professionals, and is well equipped to advise those with an international element to their lives.
Read Chris Allen’s full profile on Spears500.com
The best wealth planners in 2026: the complete list
Contact us
- Click here to order a print copy of The Spear’s 500.
- To apply for inclusion in The Spear’s 500, complete our submission form.
- For further information about rankings, please email research@spearswms.com; we aim to respond to all queries within two working days.
- For commercial enquiries and questions relating to enhanced profiles, please contact Commercial Director Shady Elkholy: shady.elkholy@spearswms.com
- To keep up to date with the Spear’s 500, subscribe to our magazine, newsletter and follow Spear’s on Linkedin and Instagram.
- If you have missed calendar deadlines for our research cycles in 2026, you can still register your interest for updates about upcoming research and rankings.
