A conversation with the man behind St. James’s Place’s Chartered programme, who has never advised a client in his life.
I sat down with Lewis Prosser, who runs the St. James’s Place programme supporting advisers from Level 4 through to Chartered status, alongside David Tait of Redmill Advance, to talk about what it actually takes to go chartered, and whether the whole journey is worth it in the first place. Lewis has spent years myth-busting one particular misconception that stops people from even starting, and along the way he’s built a career that includes Chartered status, Fellowship across three professional bodies, and a master’s degree, despite never once sitting across from a client himself. What makes his perspective genuinely useful is that he’s not speaking in theory. He’s spent years watching hundreds of advisers go through this exact process, so when he pushes back on a widely held assumption, it comes from pattern recognition built over time, not a hunch. We cover that full breadth in this conversation, from the exam mechanics through to what comes after Chartered is actually achieved.
Do You Need Five Years of Advice Experience to Go Chartered?
Lewis is direct about the myth he corrects most often, and he says it comes up in almost every conversation he has with advisers considering the jump. People assume the five years of experience required for Chartered has to be five years spent specifically advising clients, and he’s clear that this simply isn’t the case.
“I always get this sort of myth busting that you’ve got to have five years advice. I’ve never been an advisor, but I’m chartered myself.”
That single correction carries more weight than it first appears to. If an adviser believes they need years of client-facing experience before they can even think about starting the Chartered journey, they may delay it for reasons that were never actually required in the first place. Lewis’s own career is the clearest possible counter-example, someone who has built genuine authority in the profession, reached Chartered status himself, and never advised a single client along the way.
Is Going Chartered Actually Worth It Financially?
Whether Chartered is worth pursuing is a question Lewis has fielded for years, long before David Tait joined this particular conversation to add some real numbers to it.
“And actually what we’ve seen over the many years is that becoming chartered has increased business, and we’ve seen that on average be around 50% increase… It’s that journey of developing your knowledge across the board, and having that high accolade that’s recognised by professionals is huge.”
David added a second, more specific figure to that picture, citing a 2025 market survey showing that chartered financial planners earn 31% more income than Level 4 advisers, around £30,000 a year in real terms. Neither of them called either number a guarantee. Both were careful to frame it as one data point among several worth weighing up, not a silver bullet, but a genuinely hard number for anyone to walk past without at least considering.
Why Is Fellow Status Easier to Achieve Than Chartered?
Life after Chartered is where the conversation turned genuinely candid. Lewis has gone on to achieve Fellow status as well, and rather than treating it as a straightforward next step, he used it to make a wider point about how the qualification is currently structured.
“We’ve got a huge population. We want people to strive to charter. But let’s make fellow something that people really want to get to, rather than just sort of stumbling over it, which at the moment people can do.”
His argument is that Fellow, of all qualifications, should demand the most from a candidate, since it’s meant to represent what someone is actively giving back to the profession, rather than simply stacking further multiple-choice exams or recorded CPD hours on top of what they’ve already achieved. He’s candid that he personally found Fellow easier to reach than Chartered, and thinks that’s completely backwards.
What Does Life Look Like After Chartered and Fellow Status?
One of the more unexpected threads in this conversation was Lewis’s own master’s degree, made possible through a programme St. James’s Place helped set up specifically for chartered individuals.
“About four years ago, we helped SJP and the University of Gloucestershire set up a master’s programme, and that’s for individuals who are chartered, who can do a one year master’s course.”
For someone who left school without any intention of studying further, and once expected to become a police officer instead, completing that master’s became a genuine personal milestone, one he still speaks about with real pride, alongside Chartered and Fellow, as part of a journey he never expected to take.
Lewis’s story is a useful reminder that the path to Chartered, and everything that follows it, doesn’t always look the way people assume it will. Experience doesn’t have to mean years of client meetings, Fellow doesn’t automatically mean harder than Chartered, and a master’s degree isn’t reserved for people who thought of themselves as academic to begin with. If you’re weighing up whether Chartered is worth the years it takes, or wondering what comes after it, this is a conversation worth your full attention.
🎧 Listen to the full episode with Lewis Prosser and David Tait
🌐 Learn more about St. James’s Place at www.sjp.co.uk
Financial Planner Life is sponsored by Redmill Advance – Adviser CPD & Exam Support.
Whether you’re starting out, already qualified, or building a training academy, Redmill Advance delivers expert-led learning, exam support and CPD from Level 4 to Chartered.
Trusted by top UK firms
Learn more about Redmill Advance here.
