2024 Survey Reveals High Career Satisfaction Among CFP® Professionals and Strong Support for CFP® Certification
CFP Board today announced findings from a survey of CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professionals indicating that they are overwhelmingly satisfied with their financial planning careers and that CFP® certification has a positive impact on their professional lives.
These are two of the main findings from CFP Board’s 2024 survey to capture the views of CFP® professionals about their careers, CFP Board and the financial planning profession. The survey, conducted by Heart + Mind Strategies LLC, found that:
- 87% are satisfied with their career choice.
- 89% are satisfied with their decision to pursue CFP® certification.
- 4 in 5 CFP® professionals say they have a “competitive edge” over non-certified financial professionals.
- CFP® professionals say upholding both competency standards and high ethical standards, along with raising awareness and brand profile of the CFP® certification, are CFP Board’s most important initiatives.
- 2 in 3 CFP® professionals give back to their communities including:
- Offering advice on how to contribute time or money to charitable organizations, and
- Serving on the board or as an advisor to charitable organizations.
Tracking CFP® professionals’ perceptions and experiences is essential to CFP Board’s mission to uphold CFP® certification as the standard for competent and ethical financial planning.
SURVEY METHODOLOGY
CFP Board engaged Heart+Mind Strategies to survey CFP® professionals. The anonymous online survey, conducted between mid-June and mid-July 2024, generated responses from 1,900 CFP® professionals The data collected from the survey, which serves as the basis of this report, is subject to a sampling error of +/- 2% at a 95% confidence level. The responses generated by the survey reflect an adequate representation of CFP® professionals by business model, ethnicity and gender.
The 2024 survey is part of a regular survey series of CFP® professionals. Heart+Mind Strategies has conducted the survey since 2022. Fondulas Strategic Research collected the data before 2022 using telephone surveys. The newer online survey methodology allows CFP® professionals to respond at their convenience and on their chosen device (mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop), leading to improved response rates. As a result of the methodology change, 2022, 2023 and 2024 data are not directly comparable to data collected in 2021 and before.