Barclays vs Vanguard UK Investor 2024

Barclays Smart Investor offers a wide range of investments and accounts and is a good value for those with a midsize portolio who like flat fees. On the downside, it can be complicated to open an account as a non-Barclays bank customer, and you can’t buy or sell investments through the app if you don’t have a Barclays bank account.

Vanguard U.K. Investor, part of one of the world's largest fund managers, is cheap and easy to use and will appeal to investors looking for inexpensive index funds for long-term investing. Its platform, however, reveals many shortcomings compared to leading brokers, particularly relating to the narrow investment selection and lack of mobile app.

Alongside the cost per trade, most UK online brokers also charge a monthly, quarterly, or annual management fee, which varies based on the account type and balance. Based on our thorough review, Vanguard UK Investor offers better pricing than Barclays for share dealing.

Assuming a £30,000 portfolio size, here are the total annual costs for share dealing with both brokers, given different monthly activity scenarios.

5 trades per year - Barclays would cost £105 per year, while Vanguard UK Investor would cost N/A per year.

12 trades per year - Barclays would cost £75 or £147 per year, while Vanguard UK Investor would cost N/A per year.

36 trades per year - Barclays would cost £75 or £291 per year, while Vanguard UK Investor would cost N/A per year.

120 trades per year - Barclays would cost £75 or £795 per year, while Vanguard UK Investor would cost N/A per year.

3 fund trades per year - Barclays would cost £0 per year, while Vanguard UK Investor would cost £500 per year.

Barclays requires a minimum deposit of £0, while Vanguard UK Investor requires a minimum deposit of £500. From our testing we found for accounts between £0 - £250,000 Barclays charges annual custody fees of £0 - £525, while Vanguard UK Investor charges annual custody fees of Under £32,000: £48 / Over £32,000: 0.15%.

Barclays offers investors access to ISA, SIPP, Share Trading, Funds, ETFs, Bonds - Corporate, Bonds - Government (Gilts), Investment Trusts and Advisor Services, while Vanguard UK Investor offers investors access to ISA, SIPP, Funds and ETFs. Neither have CFD Trading, Spread Betting and Crypto Trading. Investing encompasses a wide variety of asset classes, so finding a broker that offers every investment type you are interested in is important.

Self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) and individual savings accounts (ISAs) are tax-advantaged savings accounts that are an important tool for many individual investors. You can read more about how these accounts operate at Gov.UK: Click here for SIPP information and here for ISA information. Our analysis finds that Both Barclays and Vanguard UK Investor offer SIPP and ISA accounts.

In our analysis of top brokers for share dealing in the U.K., we research whether each broker offers the ability to trade cash cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin and ethereum, which is still a somewhat rare offering amongst major U.K. brokers. Our review finds that neither Barclays nor Vanguard UK Investor offer crypto investing.

Our testing concluded that the website of Barclays is better than the website of Vanguard UK Investor. Barclays offers more functionality, is cleanly designed, and is, overall, easier to use for beginners and casual investors.

To compare the trading platforms of both Barclays and Vanguard UK Investor, we tested each broker's stock trading app. All features compared, our analysis finds that Barclays offers a better mobile app. Dive deeper: Best Stock Trading Apps UK.

Educational offerings are of particular importance to those who are newer to investing, and we examine the availability of several different types of educational materials in our analysis. Our research finds that Barclays offers traders access to Education (Share Trading), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement), while Vanguard UK Investor offers access to Client Webinars (Archived), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement). Neither have Client Webinars.