These 20 cities have the highest concentration of financial advisors (2024)

The three U.S. cities with the largest concentration of financial advisors are hundreds of miles away from Wall Street.

In rankings compiled last month by financial services referral firm SmartAsset, the metropolitan areas with the most advisors per capita were Salt Lake City, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Milwaukee. To create the list, SmartAsset's Ashlyn Brooks divided each city's number of "personal financial advisors," as reported by the Bureau of Labor, by the adult population of at least 25 years old who were counted in census data for the areas.

Three cities in the Tar Heel State made the top 10 metro regions most saturated with advisors, while New York failed to show up on the list at all.

Other cities closely associated with finance including San Francisco, Miami and Chicago fell in the rankings to lower-than-expected positions. The underlying data came from 2021, which means it reflected the first phase of pandemic-era population moves to states such as Florida. Utah, Wisconsin and North Carolina are drawing more advisors and clients as well.

"When we do these data projects, I feel like you see all the dots clustered on a map in a single region; this one was really notable for the way those dots are spread across the U.S.," said Susannah Snider, SmartAsset's managing editor of financial education.

In looking through the below list, advisors based in these metro areas or considering moving there might ask themselves, "What does this city mean to me? What are the industries there? What are the factors that might be driving advisors either to and from that area?" Snider added. "There is a little bit of digging that an advisor might want to do, but hopefully this is a good starting place."

In Utah, an influx of trained advisors from college programs at Utah State University and Utah Valley University has coincided with growth in venture capital firms and a general entrepreneurial spirit around Salt Lake City, according to Ryan Halliday, the managing partner of Crewe Advisors, a registered investment advisory firm with one of its three offices there.

The new residents have created "an opportunity for more and more advisors to start to build a business," he said.

Halliday added that "over the last 10 years, there has been a huge VC community. A tremendous amount of wealth has started to be created. There has been a need for more and more advisors."

North Carolina is reaping the benefits of being home to Merrill Lynch parent Bank of America, Truist and other large institutions and universities around the Research Triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. The state has garnered a stream of new residents in recent years, according to advisors based around Charlotte and the state's other large cities.

The region has also become "a magnet for South Asians relocating from overseas or elsewhere in the country when considering various factors such as raising a family, access to good schools, healthcare services and gainful employment," advisor Rupa Pereira of suburban Raleigh-based FWJ Planning said in an email. The mild weather hasn't hurt, either.

She recommended that advisors take "an abundance mentality" by viewing the concentration of advisors as a chance to separate themselves from the competition.

"Having financial advisors with varying business models allows for a higher coverage per square foot for the community seeking advisors," Pereira said. "Clients have a choice of size of practice, fee structure, niche and experience. For fellow advisors, it means more peer networking groups. The [Financial Planning Association] Triangle Chapter is quite active and organizes frequent sessions both in-person and virtual."

Advisor Nina O'Neal's Raleigh-based firm, AIM Advisors, has "a multigenerational practice that sort of happened by accident" with many retirees coming to the area, she said in an interview. Many seek to live closer to their children who have relocated with their families for work, O'Neal said.

"They're coming in droves. They don't want to stay with their advisors in California or the Northeast or other areas of the country," O'Neal said. "We see extremely often that the parent now wants to work with their kid's advisor."

The high concentration of advisors in the area "helps create an environment where people must continue to improve and excel in their areas of expertise," said Jeff Pitt, the chief experience officer for Charlotte-based Independent Advisor Alliance, one of the largest independent branch networks of advisors at LPL Financial, which has one of its corporate offices in nearby Fort Mill.

In an email interview, he cited a risk of "over-saturation," but said that he didn't think advisors "should be too concerned" about it.

"Advisors used to be limited geographically, but social media, digital marketing, and virtual meeting capabilities have minimized outreach hurdles," Pitt said. "What's become essential for financial advisors is the ability to create a differentiated offering that sets them apart from the competition. Whether it's through client experience, a focus on a specific niche or something else, it's important to stand out with a unique offering to remain competitive."

Scroll down the slideshow to see the top 20 cities in the country in terms of personal financial advisors per 10,000 adult residents. To see the 20 best-paying cities for financial advisors, click here. And, for the 20 worst-paying cities for financial advisors, follow this link.

Note: The below rankings are based on a report by SmartAsset called "These Cities are the Financial Advisor Hot Spots of 2023," which calculated the number of personal financial advisors per capita using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. The population and occupation figures came from 2021, and the number of residents refers to the number of adults at least 25 years old.