The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) retail intermediary market data for 2023 showed that the commission earned from mortgage business amounted £1.06bn, down from £1.23bn in 2022. 

Some £293m was generated from fees and charges in 2023, lower than £330m earned over the year prior. 

The FCA data showed this was across 4,104 firms, compared to 4,277 businesses transacting mortgages in 2022. 

Within this, the regulator counted 1,929 mortgage broker firms with 15,845 staff advising on mortgages. This was lower than the total of 1,964 mortgage broker firms with 16,452 employees the year before. 

Some 933 mortgage brokerages had one adviser, while 736 firms had two to five. A total of 2,053 mortgage advisers were found to be working within these 736 firms with two to five advisers. 

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Of the 230 businesses with six to 50 advisers, 2,758 were advising on mortgages.  

Some 30 firms had more than 50 advisers employed, and the number of mortgage advisers across these firms totalled 10,101. 

 

Money earned by mortgage advisers 

Firms with one adviser generated an average of £50,010 revenue per employee, while each company received £57m in regulated revenue on average. Some £44m was generated from mortgage business. 

The highest revenue generated was among advisers working at companies with six to 50 employees, earning an average of £81,358 in mortgage revenue each and £105,456 in regulated revenue. Overall, these firms generated £220m in mortgage revenue and £285m in total regulated revenue. 

Companies with more than 50 staff earned the most overall mortgage and regulated revenue, at £605m and £891m respectively. Meanwhile, each adviser at these firms earned an average of £59,956 in mortgage revenue and £88,266 in regulated revenue. 

Organisations with two to five advisers fell somewhere in the middle, earning an average mortgage revenue of £53,960 per adviser and £74,965 in regulated revenue. Altogether, these firms received £107m in mortgage revenue and £149 in regulated revenue.

 

PII premiums 

The FCA data showed that mortgage broker firms paid a total of £19.6m in professional indemnity insurance (PII) premiums in 2023, accounting for 1.4% of overall regulated revenue. 

Per firm, this amounted to an average premium of £10,594. 

Firms generating up to £100,000 in revenue spent the highest proportion on PII, accounting for 4.3%. On average, these firms paid premiums of £1,799 from revenues of £41,221. 

Firms making the most revenue of more than £10m paid the smallest share in PII at just 1%. Of the average £41m earned by these firms, £400,742 was paid towards PII.