As the financial advice industry’s talent war rumbles on, the top companies are pulling out all the stops to hire and retain the best advisors.
Set against this backdrop, InvestmentNews has surveyed organizations across the wealth industry and is proud to announce its list of Best Places to Work for 2026.
Employer-provided data and anonymously-collected employer feedback were used to determine the winners. Scoring was driven primarily by employee sentiment, consistent with SEC expectations for transparency in awards that incorporate survey results.
Organizations that received an average employee satisfaction rating of 80% or higher were recognized as 2026 Best Places to Work.
The best places to work were found to be proactive in three key areas; giving financial advisors and support staff autonomy over their time, ensuring employees can retire with lasting financial security, and investing in education for staff development
Career progression is clearly a defining fault line between the best workplaces and those that are merely competitive. The top firms in the report responded by mapping progression by role, funding credentials and advanced education, and harnessing team-based structures where junior talent is part of planning conversations.
Benefits feature prominently in the special report. VLP Financial Advisors is making its third successive appearance on the InvestmentNews Best Places to Work list and frames benefits as a tool to lower stress and support life, not as a box-ticking exercise. “Many firms talk about growth, whereas we focus on how growth happens, and that starts with our people,” said Nicholas DiFiore, VLP Financial Advisors’ director of operations.
Prentice Wealth aligns benefits with long-term financial stability, offering a safe harbor 401(k), plus an age-weighted new comparability profit-sharing plan. “We want people to have long-term stability for their financial future,” said managing partner Bill Prentice. “We don’t want people to wonder if they’re getting paid appropriately.”
For Austin, Texas-based Sage Advisory, the company’s employees are its primary asset, and its business has been designed around that principle. Sage Advisory CEO and Founder Bob Smith says that he deliberately built “a place where people felt that it was a nice place to work, that there was not a lot of drama,” and had a strong sense of stability.”
Key benefits offered by Sage Advisory span retirement, medical, and community, with the company’s employees getting 100% of their healthcare paid. “We felt that it was extremely important to give people a sense of security,” he said.
Among the best places to work for advisors in 2026, InvestmentNews is shining the spotlight on:
Some 99 organizations and 1,284 employees participated in the report, and 43 companies were picked as recipients of 2026 Best Places to Work recognition.
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