For years, the default in many UK practices has been to treat advisory conversations as something included, implicitly, in a compliance retainer. That default is quietly shifting, not because advisory has become less valuable but because firms have started noticing exactly how much of it they were giving away.
The advisory work was always happening, just unpriced
Most partners can point to specific conversations, a cashflow question answered on a call, a hiring decision talked through informally, that were genuinely advisory in nature and never appeared on an invoice. The shift underway is less about doing more advisory work and more about recognising and pricing the advisory work that was already happening.
Clients rarely object to a clear, separate advisory fee
The assumption that clients will resist paying for advice they previously got for free turns out to be less true than many firms expect, provided the fee is introduced clearly and tied to something specific: a defined piece of work, not an open ended retainer with no clear scope.
Bundled pricing was quietly training clients to expect advisory for free
A compliance retainer that has always included informal advisory conversations sets a precedent that is hard to unwind later. Firms making this shift are finding it easier to introduce separate advisory pricing with new clients from the outset than to renegotiate the expectation with long-standing ones, which is part of why the change is happening gradually rather than all at once.
Closing
The shift toward pricing advisory separately is less a new service offering and more an overdue correction: recognising, and charging for, work that was always happening inside the relationship. Firms making the change early are finding clients more accepting of it than expected, provided the fee is specific and clearly explained.
