Colorado is consistently ranked as one of the best states in the country to live in thanks to its natural beauty and economic prosperity. Its major cities, Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs and Fort Collins, dominate a TODAY magazine list of the top five best places to live in the United States. It is an excellent place to work thanks to its powerful economy and low taxes – its effective property taxes are the third lowest in the country. This picturesque state is also home to almost 2,314 financial planners.
2,620 CFPs call Colorado home, according to the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Board. These CFPs represent 3.0% of the total number of certified financial planners in the country. Aspiring CFPs should know that to join these ranks and be certified by the CFP Board, a financial advisor must first become a fiduciary, someone who is legally bound to act based on their clients’ best interests, as opposed to acting in self-interest, namely for commissions or the sale of products and services.
Consequently, aspiring financial planners have two career paths before them- either fee-based advising or commission-based advising. Fee-based advisors make their living through a pre-stated fee for the services rendered to their clients. This fee usually consists of a flat retainer, and/or an hourly rate for investment advice and other services.
If you are interested in how salaries for financial advisors, stockbrokers and insurance agents vary across different regions of Arizona, you have come to the right place. We have compiled data on the salaries of financial advisors, stockbrokers and insurance agents in Colorado, across its various metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions. This data has been acquired from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and is visible below.
Financial Advisor Salary in Colorado
Below we have data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2019 on the financial advisors in Arizona’s metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.
Many of the financial advisors in the state can be found in Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, where they earn an hourly mean wage of $56.39, which correlates to an annual salary of $117,290. The annual mean salary is highest in Boulder at $ 133,200. The Northwest Colorado non-metropolitan area comes in second with an annual mean salary of $121,780. The hourly median wage is highest in Boulder at $53.43, followed by Pueblo, where it is $47.56. The 75th percentile hourly wage for experienced advisors is highest in the Northwest Colorado non-metropolitan area, followed by Boulder.
Note that annual wages are calculated by multiplying the corresponding hourly wage by 2,080 hours. Also note that that self-employed workers were not counted in this data.
Stockbroker Salary in Colorado
The Denver-Aurora-Lakewood area is home to the most stockbrokers in the state – 8,540 professionals. Colorado Springs comes in a distant second with an almost an eighth of that amount. And yet, hourly wages for stockbrokers are uniform across Colorado. On the upper end, the hourly mean wage is $33.56 in Fort Collins, followed closely by Colorado Springs where it is $32.87. It is lowest in Pueblo, where it is $28. The hourly median wage shows a similar amount of variance; it is lowest in the Southwest nonmetropolitan area at $20.84 and highest in Fort Collins at $26.56, followed closely by the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood area. However, the Northwest and Southwest Colorado non-metropolitan areas are both quite close to the rest of Colorado in almost all metrics.
Life/Annuity Producer Salary in Colorado
There are a little over 6,000 life/annuity producers in Colorado, with 5,160 of them based in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood area alone. The hourly mean wage here is $33.60, in second place to Colorado Springs where the hourly mean wage is $38.90. Wages on the higher end in the 75th and 90th percentile, are also highest in Colorado Springs, with Denver-Aurora-Lakewood in second. The Northwest Colorado nonmetropolitan area boasts comparable wages in all fields to Denver-Aurora-Lakewood.
(Salary and job growth data reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in May 2019 for personal financial advisors; securities, commodities and financial services sales agents; and insurance sales agents. Figures represent national data, not school-specific information. Conditions in your area may vary. Information accessed February 2021.)