The Financial Advice Barometer found that ‘security’ – meaning protecting assets - was the most “important priority” for advisers’ clients in terms of savings and investment options, up 13 percentage points from 47% to 60% since the last survey was carried out in January.

Security was ranked as the most important priority cited by advisers on behalf of their clients in every Financial Adviser Barometer since the survey began in February 2016.

Some 61% of the 80 advisers who took part also thought that security was more important to their clients than inflation risk. Findings suggest that although UK inflation is currently forecast to remain higher than returns on cash deposits, advisers still view the security and flexibility provided by cash as relatively more important than the potential above-inflation returns offered by non-cash investments.

There is an increase in the proportion of advisers that recommend that their clients hold a larger percentage of their investment portfolio in cash. Some 27% of respondents in July said that they recommend that their clients should hold 20% in cash, up from 18% in January. Conversely, 33% of respondents in July said that they recommend that their clients should hold only 10% in cash, down from 40% in January.

The most commonly recommended length of term for fixed-term cash deposits remains one-year, with 60% of advisers choosing this option in the July survey. An increasing percentage of respondents indicate that they expect to make no change (increase or decrease) to their clients’ cash holdings in the next six months (70% in July compared to 60% in January).

Advisers have mixed outlook on broader factors impacting clients’ investment performance. Some 50% of respondents thought that forecast inflation increases would have a particularly negative impact on their clients’ investment performance. Conversely, 64% of respondents thought that movements in global stock markets would have a particularly positive impact on their clients’ investment performance.

Confidence in advice industry remains high with 85% of advisers either ‘very confident’ (35%) or ‘fairly confident’ (50%) about the future prospects for the financial advice industry.

Andrew Pike, head of intermediary relationships at NS&I, said: “Advisers are telling us that protecting security is a trade-off that they are clearly willing to make against the risk of inflation eroding the real value of their clients’ investment portfolio. These results confirm that cash remains an important and robust element of any balanced investment portfolio.”