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Always remember that investments can go down as well as up in value, so you could get back less than you put in. A rule of thumb is to hang on to your investments for at least five years to give them the best chance of providing the returns you want.
Contents:
This article highlights some of the best investment platforms in the UK with a focus on the best ones for long-term investing. An investment platform is essentially a service that allows you to buy, sell, and manage a range of investment products such as stocks, bonds, funds, ETFs, and more.
Much like an online supermarket, an investment platform offers a diverse selection of investment products from various providers. It can be seen as an intermediary between you and the global investment market, and these platforms often come with tools to help you manage your investments. Investment platforms are best for people looking to invest for the long term.
Please remember that when you invest, your capital is at risk. ISA, pension, and tax rules also apply.
The platforms listed below are authorised and regulated by the UK’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Here are the best investment platforms in the UK:
AJ Bell is one of the UK’s largest online investment platforms, and its mission is to make investing as easy as possible for anyone. The platform offers thousands of investment options for the DIY investor, including UK and overseas shares, funds, bonds, investment trusts, ETFs, ETCs, warrants, and ready-made investments.
There are multiple ways to get started with AJ Bell, depending on your risk tolerance and savviness as an investor. Beginner investors or those who prefer to choose a ready-made investment portfolio can get a little, or a lot, of help from AJ Bell’s specialists by selecting one of the investment ideas on offer. Investment ideas are diversified, ready-made baskets of investments that you can select based on your personal preference and attitude to risk. There are eight total investment ideas, each built by a specialist team, and you can pick the right one for you depending on whether you are seeking to simply grow your money over time or receive an income whilst still growing your money. Expert investors can take advantage of the stock and fund screeners and complex instruments available on AJ Bell and build their portfolios themselves.
AJ Bell charges an annual platform fee ranging from 0.25% to 0%, depending on the size of your portfolio. Dealing fees for buying and selling investments online are £1.50 for funds and £5 for shares (reducing to £3.50 if there were ten or more online share deals in the previous month). AJ Bell’s products include a Share Dealing Account, Stocks and Shares ISA, Junior Stocks and Shares ISA, Lifetime ISA, SIPP and Junior SIPP.
Capital at risk.
InvestEngine is a low-cost ETF investment platform that provides a choice of managed portfolios tailored to you and commission-free DIY investing to help you build long-term wealth. Users can invest in over 500 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from leading global asset managers.
With InvestEngine, you can invest in two ways depending on your tolerance for risk and savviness as an investor: beginner investors or those who prefer a ready-made investment portfolio can select from one of the Managed Portfolios on offer, where the team of experts at InvestEngine will take care of the day-to-day investment decisions for you. These portfolios are a selection of ETFs based on your preferences and risk tolerance. Once you’ve selected one, you do not have to do anything else besides monitor the performance of your investments. Advanced or more confident investors can choose from 500+ commission-free ETFs and build their portfolios themselves. InvestEngine also offers fractional investing, which allows you to buy bits and pieces of an ETF with as little as £1. This enhances your ability to build a diversified portfolio even if you have a small amount of money to invest. With the DIY Portfolio, there are no platform fees. All InvestEngine portfolios are free of setup fees, dealing fees, ISA fees or withdrawal fees.
InvestEngine stands out amongst its competitors as one of the cheapest investment apps in the UK because it charges no platform or management fees on its DIY Portfolio and just 0.25% a year on its Managed Portfolio. You can also start investing with as little as £100. InvestEngine’s suite of products includes a Stocks and Shares ISA, Personal Account and Business Account.
Capital at risk.
Earn up to 4.07% annual interest on uninvested cash
Interactive Investor, recently acquired by wealth management giant Abrdn, is the second-largest investment platform in the UK. It is well known for its fixed charges (as opposed to percentage-based fees like most other investment platforms) and has been providing investment services and financial information since 1995.
If you choose to invest with Interactive Investor, you will gain access to over 40,000 investment options, including UK and overseas shares, funds, investment trusts, and ETFs. This is the second-widest choice of UK and international investments offered by an investment platform in the UK. Interactive Investor allows you to build your portfolio in multiple ways depending on your investment goals, attitude to risk and personal preferences. Beginner investors or those who prefer ready-made investments can build their portfolios using Interactive Investor’s Quick-Start Funds, an easy way to start investing where you choose from six low-cost funds prepared by the team of experts at Interactive Investor. Advanced or more confident investors can choose from a wide range of funds and shares and build their portfolios themselves. Interactive Investor gives you access to 17 global stock exchanges, including exchanges in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. These include markets such as the FTSE 100, FTSE 250, FTSE All-Share, S&P 500, NASDAQ, NYSE, Dow Jones and more. In addition to the above, Interactive Investor offers Japanese, Indian and Chinese shares in the form of American Depositary Receipts (ADRs).
Interactive Investor gives you a free trade every month, which you can use to buy or sell any investment. After that, trades usually cost £3.99. For those investing £50,000 or less, you can sign up for the cheapest plan (Investor Essentials), which costs only £4.99 a month but does not come with the monthly free trade. The platform also offers a free regular investing service that allows you to deposit as little as £25 a month towards your investments without paying a trading fee each time, irrespective of the plan you choose. Interactive Investor also has lots of expert ideas, research and insights, which can be helpful when selecting investments. Interactive Investor’s suite of products includes a Trading Account, Stocks and Shares ISA, SIPP and Junior ISA.
Capital at risk.
Kickstart your investing with an award-winning ISA. Hargreaves Lansdown is a FTSE 100 company and the largest investment platform in the UK. Its core mission is to build long-term client relationships by becoming a trusted partner and financial champion, ultimately helping you increase your financial security for the future.
If you choose to invest with Hargreaves Lansdown, you will gain access to over 2,500 funds, UK and overseas shares, ETFs, ETCs, investment trusts and more. With Hargreaves Lansdown, you can build your investment portfolio in one of two ways depending on your investing know-how: Beginner investors or those who prefer to choose a ready-made investment portfolio can build their portfolios by choosing from a range of ready-made options where the team of experts at Hargreaves Lansdown will take care of the day-to-day investment decisions for you. Advanced or more confident investors can choose from a wide range of funds, shares and other investments and build their portfolios themselves.
Hargreaves Lansdown does not charge a platform fee on its Fund and Share Account but charges 0.45% (capped at £45) a year on its ISA and 0.45% (capped at £200) a year on its SIPP. It offers most products, including a Fund and Share Account, Stocks and Shares ISA, Lifetime ISA, Junior ISA, and SIPP. These services are intended for investors who are happy making their own decisions.
Capital at risk. The fees quoted here are not exhaustive. Other charges apply.
eToro is a multi-asset investment platform that offers both investing in stocks and cryptoassets, as well as trading CFDs. With eToro, UK traders have real-time access to thousands of stocks, ETFs, indices, commodities, forex, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs from top exchanges worldwide. Catering to beginners and expert traders, eToro provides an impressive range of fundamental and technical analysis tools, including market news, economic data, social media trends, news sentiment trends, and advanced charting tools.
If you are new to investing or prefer a more hands-off approach, eToro offers over 40 fully allocated, balanced, ready-made investment portfolios that focus on different market segments you can understand and to which you can relate. Some of the portfolios include MetaverseLife, BigTech, GoldWorldWide, Vaccine-Med, BitcoinWorldWide, Diabetes-Med, Driverless, GigEconomy, and many more. These portfolios are a grouping of several assets, such as stocks, cryptocurrencies, ETFs, and even people, bundled together based on a predetermined theme or strategy.
It is entirely free to open an account with eToro, and all registered users receive a US$100,000 demo account for free, which you can use to practise trading or investing until you become confident. Trading on eToro occurs in USD, so a currency conversion fee will apply if you deposit or withdraw a currency other than USD. Withdrawals incur a fee of US$5 (£4), and the minimum withdrawal amount is US$30 (£24). For UK customers, eToro offers an eToro Money app that allows you to convert your GBP to USD free of charge, thereby reducing your foreign exchange costs.
Please note: Your capital is at risk. 61% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Additionally, cryptoassets are highly volatile and unregulated in the UK. No consumer protection. Tax on profits may apply. Copy Trading does not amount to investment advice. Other fees apply. For more information, visit eToro.
Moneybox is a UK investment app that allows you to invest in a range of tracker funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), exchange-traded commodities (ETCs) and US stocks. Moneybox offers two forms of investing depending on your investment savviness, investing strategy and attitude to risk. Beginner investors or those who prefer a ready-made portfolio can choose from the three ready-made portfolios on offer - Cautious (lower risk), Balanced (medium risk) and Adventurous (higher risk). Advanced or more confident investors can pick from the range of tracker funds, ETFs, ETCs and US stocks available and build their portfolios themselves.
The Moneybox app also empowers you to invest your spare change by rounding up your card transactions to the nearest pound and investing the difference on your behalf. For example, if you spend £2.30 on a snack, Moneybox will invest 70p for you. You can also instruct the app to make weekly or one-off deposits into your investment portfolio as it rounds up your spare change.
You can start investing with Moneybox with as little as £1. Moneybox offers commission-free trading on US stocks. However, fund management fees apply to other types of investments. A currency conversion fee of 0.45% also applies to US stocks. Moneybox’s suite of products includes a Stocks and Shares ISA, Lifetime ISA, Junior ISA, Personal Pension, and General Investment Account.
Please note: US stocks on Moneybox are only available via a Stocks and Shares ISA.
Capital at risk.
Vanguard is a low-cost investment platform with over 75 own-brand funds, including ETFs, active funds and index funds. Vanguard does not offer stocks and shares, but there are various ETFs on offer for those interested in exchange-traded securities.
The Vanguard Stocks and Shares ISA allows you to build an investment portfolio in two ways depending on your investment savviness: beginner investors or those who prefer a ready-made investment portfolio can build their portfolio by selecting one of Vanguard’s ready-made portfolios, which give you access to thousands of bonds and shares in a single investment. Advanced or more confident investors can choose from over 75 individual Vanguard funds and ETFs and build their portfolios themselves.
To open a Vanguard Stocks and Shares ISA, you need at least £100 per month or a lump sum of £500. There is a yearly management fee of 0.15% (capped at £375) per year. Some of the funds on offer have separate charges, so please check these before investing. Vanguard’s suite of products includes a Stocks and Shares ISA, Junior ISA, General Account and SIPP.
Capital at risk.
The table below aims to show a representative example of your annual investment fees for funds (not shares) held in a Stocks and Shares ISA.
To make the best use of the table, click on the column headers to sort from the most expensive to the cheapest investment platform and vice versa.
For example, if you want to see the cheapest platforms for regular investments of £100 per month, click once on the £100 per month header. To see the most expensive platform for a lump sum investment of £20k, click twice on the £20,000 lump sum header.
Continue this exercise on all the headers until you find what you are looking for. Then, scroll down to read our assumptions.
Capital at risk. ISA rules apply. Other charges apply.
| Platform | £100 per Month | £500 per Month | £1,000 per Month | £20,000 Lump Sum | £100,000 Lump Sum | Learn More |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 26 | 34 | 56 | 256 | DETAILS |
.png) | 3 | 13 | 26 | 80 | 375 | DETAILS |
 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 212 | DETAILS |
 | 2 | 11 | 23 | 70 | 350 | DETAILS |
 | 2 | 8 | 16 | 50 | 250 | DETAILS |
 | 39 | 53 | 71 | 95 | 310 | DETAILS |
 | 2 | 11 | 23 | 70 | 350 | DETAILS |
 | 72 | 72 | 72 | 72 | 72 | DETAILS |
 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 74 | 74 | DETAILS |
| 3 | 15 | 29 | 90 | 450 | DETAILS |
 | 2 | 8 | 16 | 50 | 250 | DETAILS |
| 144 | 144 | 144 | 144 | 144 | DETAILS |
| 240 | 240 | 240 | 240 | 240 | DETAILS |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | DETAILS |
 | 160 | 160 | 160 | 120 | 120 | DETAILS |
 | 2 | 11 | 23 | 70 | 275 | DETAILS |
 | 2 | 11 | 23 | 70 | 350 | DETAILS |
 | 24 | 24 | 27 | 60 | 250 | DETAILS |
| 1 | 5 | 10 | 30 | 150 | DETAILS |
 | 3 | 13 | 26 | 80 | 350 | DETAILS |
The calculations above are based on the following scenarios:
For regular investments, we assume you’ll make 12 deals each year or one deal every month.
For lump sums, we assume you’ll make four deals a year.
A deal is either one of buying or selling an investment. It is also called a trade.
Here are the best investment platforms for beginners in the UK:
For beginners, it is often advisable to start with simple and diversified investment products, such as index funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs). These funds invest in a wide range of assets (like stocks or bonds) which follow a specific market index. They offer an easy way to spread your money across multiple investments, reducing the risk compared to investing in individual stocks. A popular choice among beginners is a low-cost global index fund such as the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index Fund, which provides broad exposure to thousands of companies around the world.
The choice between stocks, index funds, and ETFs largely depends on your risk tolerance, investment knowledge, and time commitment. Investing in individual stocks can yield high returns if you pick the right ones, but it also involves higher risk and requires a considerable amount of research. On the other hand, index funds and ETFs are typically more diversified, thus reducing risk. They also require less time and knowledge to manage, making them a preferable choice for beginners and those with a more passive investment strategy.
A great starting point for first-time investors might be a low-cost index fund or ETF that tracks a broad market index. This provides broad exposure to a wide range of companies and sectors, which helps diversify your portfolio and spread out risk. Funds that track large indices, such as the S&P 500 or the FTSE 100, are popular choices for beginners due to their wide diversification and simplicity.
Here are the best investment platforms in the UK:
The best investments that generate regular income in the UK include dividend-paying stocks, bonds, or real estate investment trusts (REITs). Dividend stocks distribute a portion of the company’s earnings to shareholders, while bonds pay regular interest. REITs, which invest in commercial properties, pay out a portion of their rental income to investors.
For instance, UK companies like Vodafone and Unilever or US companies like Apple and Microsoft often pay regular dividends to their shareholders.
Bonds, such as UK government bonds (also known as gilts), offer regular interest payments, providing a steady income.
In terms of REITs, Tritax Big Box REIT PLC, a UK REIT that focuses on large-scale logistics real estate, is an example of a company that distributes a portion of its rental income to investors.
Finally, an income-focused fund like the iShares UK Dividend UCITS ETF (IUKD) could be a good option as it combines these income-producing investments. Always remember that investments can go down as well as up, and you may not get back the original amount invested.
The cheapest investment platform in the UK is InvestEngine. InvestEngine stands out amongst its competitors as the cheapest investment platform because it charges no platform or management fee on its DIY Portfolio and just 0.25% a year on its managed portfolio. However, please note that with InvestEngine, you can only invest in or trade exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
There’s no definitive age by which you should have £100k invested, as this greatly depends on your personal circumstances, including income, financial obligations, and your saving and investment goals. However, the principle of ‘the earlier, the better’ generally applies to investing. This is due to the power of compound interest, which allows your investments to grow exponentially over time - the longer your money is invested, the more potential it has to grow.
For example, if you start investing £200 a month at age 25, assuming an average annual return of 5%, you would have over £100k by the time you reach your mid-40s. However, if you start investing the same amount at age 35, you won’t reach £100k until your mid-50s.
It is important to set realistic investment goals, develop a consistent investment plan, and start as early as possible to maximise the potential of your investments. Also, it is never too late to start investing. Even if you’ve passed these ages, starting to invest now can still help improve your financial future.
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