2023 Survey of CFP® Professionals Shows Continued High Satisfaction With Their Career Choice, CFP® Certification

CFP Board today announced findings from a survey of CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals indicating that they are overwhelmingly satisfied with their career choice as a financial planner and that the CFP® certification has a positive impact on their careers.

These are just two of the main findings from CFP Board’s 2023 survey to ascertain the views of CFP® professionals about their careers, CFP Board and the financial planning profession. Among other things, the 2023 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.
• 86% would recommend CFP® certification to a colleague.
• 2 in 3 CFP® professionals contribute to their communities including:
  - Giving advice on how to contribute time or money to charitable organizations, and
  - Serving on the board or as an advisor to charitable organizations.
• 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.

Read the survey report

SURVEY METHODOLOGY

CFP Board engaged Heart+Mind Strategies to conduct the 2023 certificant survey. The anonymous online survey, conducted September 13 – October 13, 2023, generated responses from 1,793 CFP® professionals. The data collected from the survey, which serves as the basis of this report, is subject to a sampling error of +/- 2.3 percent at a 95 percent level of confidence. The response generated by the survey reflects an adequate representation of CFP® professionals by business model, ethnicity and gender.

The 2023 survey is part of a regular survey series of CFP® professionals. The 2022 survey also was conducted online by Heart+Mind Strategies. Fondulas Strategic Research collected the data prior to 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 data are not directly comparable to data collected in 2021 and before.