New research analysing the performance of more than 150 ready-made ISA portfolios from 22 popular UK investment platforms reveals startling differences in performance.
The analysis, published by Investing Insiders, compares the historic performance of ready-made portfolios, investment options aimed at beginners and those wanting easy, ‘hands-off’ investing, across 22 popular platforms over different time frames. It evaluated how they have performed in comparison to each other, and against one of the UK’s most widely tracked stock-market benchmarks. The results showed that performance varies wildly, even when taking into account different fund objectives and risk categories.
After 10 years, the best performing fund had produced 25 times more growth than the worst performing fund. The best performing fund included in the analysis was Vanguard’s LifeStrategy 100% Equity fund, which returned 225 per cent over 10 years. The portfolio with the smallest growth was Moneyfarm’s portfolio 1, its most cautious fund, which returned 4.3 per cent.
In real terms, that difference would have meant a one-time £20,000 investment at the start of the 10-year period, growing by a massive £45,000 to a total of £65,000 in the Vanguard portfolio, versus growth of just £1,800 in the Moneyfarm portfolio, resulting in a total return of £21,800. The difference can be partly explained by the different strategies and objectives sought by the funds. Vanguard’s LifeStrategy 100% Equity fund, for example, invests entirely in equities (stocks).
Over the past 10 years, stock markets have risen strongly. A 100 per cent equities fund, fully invested in shares, will have benefited fully from that growth. A cautious fund will only invest a small amount in shares, so it will have captured much less of that upside.
Cautious funds largely hold bonds and gilts to reduce risk. But in recent years, rising interest rates have pushed bond prices down, meaning returns from bonds were relatively low. Therefore, cautious funds were held back by assets that didn’t perform as well.
However, even when accounting for how much of the portfolio was invested in equities and differences in the fund’s objectives, the variation between the gains returned was stark, according to the data. Founder and Managing Director of Investing Insiders, Antonia Medlicott explained: “For example, in the ‘Cautious’ category of funds, we found that Person A, investing £5,000 into the top-performing ‘Cautious’ portfolio (AJ Bell’s Moderately Cautious ready-made portfolio) would have seen their initial investment grow by 31.77 per cent (£1,588) to £6,588 over the 5 years to the end of February 2026.
“In contrast, Person B, who chose Wealthify’s Cautious portfolio, would have seen growth of just 2.5 per cent (£125) to a total of just £5,125. That is troubling because 2.5 per cent is well below the rate of inflation over that same time period. The Bank of England puts total inflation at roughly 25 per cent over the past 5 years, meaning Person B would have needed their initial investment to grow to around £6,249 in order to simply retain its value.”
The best performers among the 22 direct-to-investor platforms analysed, were AJ Bell, Moneybox, Fidelity and Vanguard, all producing multiple high-performing ready-made portfolios. The analysis compared portfolio performance with the FTSE 100, which has delivered strong growth in recent years. However, the findings show that many portfolios failed to keep pace with the benchmark, although some, including both Moneybox’s Adventurous and Balanced portfolios, Vanguard’s LifeStrategy 100% Equities fund, Fidelity’s World Allocator fund, and Moneyfarm’s Portfolio 7, easily outperformed the FTSE 100 over the past 10 years.
Barclays, HSBC, and J.P. Morgan Personal Investing also offer portfolios that have outperformed the FTSE 100 over the past decade. Antonia Medlicott commented: “Ready-made portfolios have become increasingly popular among investors who want a simple, diversified investment strategy without having to pick individual funds or shares.
“By giving DIY investors the free tools needed to compare performance across different providers, we’re able to help people gain a clearer picture of how these different portfolios have performed historically and the variety that exists across the market. Performance is not the only thing that investors will need to take into account; fees are equally important, because a set of great returns can easily be wiped out by unnecessarily expensive platform fees.” The report also emphasises that past performance is not a guarantee of future results, and investors should always consider risk levels, fees, and long-term goals before choosing a portfolio.
