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Private Markets Survey Report 2026: Ambition, access and the real friction

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Ambition has arrived. Infrastructure has not.

For both investment managers and wealth managers, private markets have moved from a speculative allocation to a core pillar of growth. When asked about growth strategy over the next three years, 67% of wealth managers and 49% of investment managers rate private markets as a high priority.

Delivery is a different story. Only 6% of wealth managers and 5% of investment managers report fully integrated private markets data connectivity. The industry is further ahead on conviction than it is on capability.

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Based on research among 200 senior investment managers and wealth managers across the UK, Switzerland and Luxembourg, the FE fundinfo Private Markets Survey Report 2026 shows where your peers feel the friction and what they plan to do about it.

Key findings

Private Markets Survey Report 2026 teaser image

“The industry is still defining what good looks like in that world, and firms that conflate data connectivity with portfolio intelligence will find themselves well-equipped on paper but unable to answer the questions clients are actually asking.”

Maryam Longrus, Head of Private Markets, FE fundinfo 

  • Confidence has outrun capability

    90% of wealth managers and 83% of investment managers consider themselves well-equipped to manage the convergence of public and private assets. Yet only 6% of wealth managers and 5% of investment managers have fully integrated data, and 46% and 42% respectively still rely on frequent manual intervention.

  • Portfolio construction is limited by data you cannot see

    24% of wealth managers flag concentration and diversification as their biggest portfolio challenge, ahead of valuation frequency. Yet holdings and look-through data rank only fifth among operational burdens at 31%. Valuations and net asset value (NAV) pricing (64%), cashflow schedules (56%), fees and cost breakdowns (42%) and risk and exposure data (40%) all rank higher.

    The report concludes that this is a data availability problem. Without sight of underlying holdings, you cannot build a diversified allocation across public and private assets.

  • Distribution is moving faster than the infrastructure behind it

    Just over half of wealth managers (51%) see model portfolio providers as a key distribution channel for private markets. Most UK business-to-business (B2B) platforms cannot yet support private markets within model portfolios. Retail participation is already active, with 28% of wealth managers targeting retail clients.

    Wealth managers are almost twice as likely as investment managers to call their participation mature (17% against 9%).

SOLUTIONS INSTI – Research & Insights 2

Private Markets Survey Report 2026

Inside the report

Five chapters take you from strategic intent to practical next steps.

  • Ambition is high, and more deliberate than expected: which asset classes and investment routes both groups are prioritising
  • On board but still getting started: where participation stands today across distribution channels and client segments
  • The wrong friction points have been dominating the conversation: what practitioners rank as their biggest barriers
  • Data and infrastructure: the real barrier to scale, and the confidence gap around it
  • Next steps: capability priorities, AI and building for scale

Who should read it?

Leaders in product, distribution, operations and data, investment managers and wealth managers. If you are shaping how your firm delivers private markets to clients, this gives you a benchmark grounded in what your peers are thinking.

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FAQs

Frequently asked questions

It is FE fundinfo’s inaugural private markets whitepaper, based on Censuswide research among 128 senior investment managers and 72 senior wealth managers. It covers strategic priorities, distribution, operational challenges, data infrastructure, AI adoption and capability investment. Fieldwork ran from 25 March to 7 April 2026.

All respondents were senior leaders based in the UK, Switzerland or Luxembourg, working at organisations with at least £1bn in AUM. Responses were collected anonymously. The findings reflect self-reported perceptions and stated intent, not transaction-level data.

Suitability and client understanding is the most-cited portfolio-level challenge, named by 45% of investment managers and 36% of wealth managers. Operational complexity and servicing costs is the biggest barrier to scaling access, cited by 28% of wealth managers and 27% of investment managers. Only 18% of respondents cite liquidity as a major barrier.

Not very. Only 5% of investment managers and 6% of wealth managers describe their private markets data connectivity as fully integrated. A further 42% of investment managers and 46% of wealth managers report some connectivity but frequent manual intervention.

Both groups see the highest value in structured, repeatable processes. Data validation and exception management is a top use case for 54% of wealth managers and 43% of investment managers, while automating investor communications is selected by 60% of investment managers and 49% of wealth managers. Due diligence support ranks lower, as human judgement remains preferred.