When the UK's CFA Society, the professional body for investment management with more than 11,000 members, asked its members to evaluate the regard the profession is held in by clients, respondents gave an average score of 6.4/10. However, they gave society more broadly a score of 4.6/10. Only 16 per cent expect the profession would be given a score of 7 or more by society.

In other findings, investment professionals believe clients do not take as much notice of a potential investment manager’s commitment to ethics and professionalism as they should. Almost half (48 per cent) of respondents said clients should score the importance of that commitment as 10/10. However, only 18 per cent of respondents actually believe clients give it that weighting, with respondents on average indicating they believe clients would score the importance of a firm’s commitment to ethics and professionalism at 7.5/10.

“Our stakeholders believe that the investment profession perform an important social function, but one that is not well understood and that is widely criticised. Some of the criticisms directed at the profession are a consequence of our failure to explain ourselves; others are more fundamental and should be addressed,” said Will Goodhart, chief executive of CFA UK.

In response to the challenges highlighted and the apparent reputational issues of the profession, CFA UK is creating four working groups to develop recommendations on communication, clients, cost, competition and capital allocation.