Paraplanners are feeling increasing appreciated by the advisers they work with, according to a new report from platform Embark.

Almost nine in ten (88%) of paraplanners surveyed said they feel more valued by their firms than in the past.

Three quarters said their firm sees them as essential support for advisers.

Paraplanners also had strong relationships with the advisers they worked with. Around nine in ten of the paraplanners surveyed said they felt they can challenge an adviser’s recommendation.

Of the 332 paraplanners surveyed, 82% said they were confident about their future in paraplanning.

Over nine in ten (92%) had extremely high levels of confidence in the future of the profession, with 88% feeling confident in the future of the advice industry in general.

This compared to just 70% of advisers who were confident in the future of the advice industry when surveyed by Embark in March.

Over eight in ten (85%) of the paraplanners surveyed viewed paraplanning as a career in its own right, with 13% viewing it as a route into a career as an adviser.

However, paraplanners felt less valued by clients. Only 29% of client-facing paraplanners felt their role was appreciated by clients.

Ranila Ravi-Burslem, intermediary distribution director at Embark, said: “It’s great to see paraplanners report such strong engagement and confidence levels. Confidence can also be a function of age, of course. And with an average age of 39 – compared to a financial adviser in their mid-50s - paraplanners may be justifiably more confident in certain areas – for example, in dealing with younger demographics.

“The fact that 9 out of 10 paraplanners feel able to challenge their adviser’s recommendation is fantastic - perhaps this stat more than any other shows how far paraplanning has come. While those conversations might be difficult, they should ultimately strengthen the advice process, especially when getting to an optimal client solution can be an iterative process.”

Paraplanners thought there were several areas where they could add more value.

They identified systems/technology expertise (35%), technical analysis (31%), and advice recommendations (31%) as areas where they thought they could add more value.

The main barriers to adding more value to their firms were workloads (57%) and company structure (27%).

Research in Finance surveyed 332 paraplanners on behalf of Embark in May.