Spotlight Series: Get to know Finlay Wilson

Building a career in financial planning is about more than qualifications, it’s about curiosity, perspective, and a genuine desire to help people achieve what matters most to them.

In this Q&A, we catch up with Finlay Wilson, Trainee Financial Planner at Carbon, to hear about his journey from Graduate Trainee to Trainee Financial Planner, what inspires him in his role, and the key financial issues he believes clients should be thinking about over the next decade. From navigating market volatility to planning legacies with confidence, Finlay shares what financial planning really looks like from the inside.

Talk us through your career to date

I started at Carbon in 2022 as a Graduate Trainee joining the client support team. I worked in the client support team until 2024 achieving my diploma during this period. I then joined the Paraplanning team, where I worked until mid-2025 before moving into my current role as a Trainee Financial Planner.

Tell us about your role at Carbon and what you enjoy most about it

My current role as a Trainee Financial Planner involves supporting the planning team whilst I work towards full accreditation to give advice independently. A key part of this role is supporting Senior Planners in client meetings and following up on advice points afterwards. This helps me build the experience needed to eventually manage my own clients.

My favourite part of the role is client meetings, our clients are always interesting people, often with equally interesting financial situations, and sometimes both. This means every meeting is different and new, each presenting opportunities to help our clients achieve their goals.

What is it about your role that excites and inspires you?

Hearing about our clients’ goals and aspirations and then supporting them to achieve them. This is what financial planning is all about and the team often talks about the satisfaction we get when a client comes in with stories of their recent bucket list trip or the house deposit they’ve made for their kids, often things they didn’t know they could afford to do before speaking to us.

From your perspective, what are they key financial issues to be aware of over the next 10 year(s)?

A big issue for a number of our clients is the changes to the IHT treatment of pensions coming into effect in a year’s time. Pensions coming into the scope of IHT from April 2027, has forced people to make more active decisions around planning their legacy as they go from a very small IHT liability to a sizable one. We help by making sure our clients know their capacity to spend and gift and in more complex cases advise on the set up of trusts and other structures.

Another key issue for our clients has been market volatility, in the past year we have seen markets react to the Trump tariffs, scepticism around AI and most recently the war in Iran. Although we cannot predict when market events are going to happen, we can prepare for them through measures such as keeping a healthy cash balance, so you don’t need to draw down during a dip and making sure you only take on a level of risk you are comfortable with.

What is the most important piece of advice you give to clients?

Start with your end goal in mind, we’ll help you figure out the rest.

One of the first things we do with new clients is to get an idea of what their desired lifestyle looks like, irrespective of their financial situation. This is because too often we hear things like ‘I don’t think I can afford to retire until I’m 65’ or ‘We could never afford a holiday like that every year’. This is often not the case which is why we ask clients to start with their end goal and let us work backwards and figure out how to achieve it.

If Finlay’s perspective resonates with you and you’d like support turning your goals into a clear, achievable plan, we’re here to help. You can reach us on 0131 220 0000 or email enquiries@carbonfinancial.co.uk.