Best UK Investing Accounts For Kids

Children cannot invest on their own behalf in the UK until they are 18, but fortunately, you can do it for them. So in this guide, I’ll run you through some of the best investment accounts for children, what they are good at and what they can teach youngsters about money.

First, here are the most common ways to invest for kids in the UK.

1. Do it in your name and let them have the proceeds.
2. Open a Junior Stocks and Shares ISA (JISA)
3. Start a pension for them with a Junior SIPP (Self-Invested Private Pension)

Why do it for them in your name?

This is a really simple way of investing for your children, as you can open a general investing account with a huge range of providers in the UK. A few good examples are:

AJ Bell if you want to buy small-cap shares, investment trusts and bonds. Dealing commission can be higher than other accounts but you get access to the most markets, customer service is brilliant and they offer some excellent guides on what to buy.

InvestEngine lets you buy ETFs so you can buy into sectors and themes like Gold, Tech and the US stock market. There is no commission or account fee so this is a good option if you just want to invest a little bit and diversify.

Wealthify, which is owned by Aviva, runs pre-made portfolios that are based on risk, so you can decide how often and how much risk you want to take and make regular contributions to these accounts. It’s a good way of automatically investing in professional portfolios on autopilot for your children.

However, the disadvantage of these is that you are not actually investing for your children, you are investing your own money and pay tax on your profits as an adult. On the plus side though, the money remains yours if you need access to it for an emergency or want to buy something else for your children with the profits.

Junior ISAs let you invest tax-free for your children

But, once you add money to a JISA, it legally belongs to the child and only they can access it when they turn 18. So if you need it you can’t get it. Plus, you have to trust that your children will do something sensible with it when they turn 18 and either keep on investing it, rather than spending it all in the pub.

There are some great JISA which offer lots of different ways to invest.

Hargreaves Lansdown is one of the UK’s largest brokers and lets you invest and deal in a junior stocks and shares ISA with no account fees or commission. You can buy shares in small and large companies in the UK and US so can invest in your children’s favourite brands like Nike or Apple.

Beanstalk is a great app that lets you slipt your money between bonds and the stock market so you can quickly change how much risk you want to take.

GoHenry, although primarily a pocket money app lets you invest in a JISA run by Blackrock that tracks the global markets. It’s very simple as as with Beanstalk providers a payment link you can send to friends and family for them to pay into your child’s JISA for birthdays etc.

You can use our comparison of the best junior stocks and shares ISAs to compare fees and customer reviews.

Start a pension for your children

Get a head start on making sure your kids start paying into a pension ASAP by opening them a Junior SIPP, which lets you buy shares, bonds, trusts, and ETFs for when they retire. As with a junior SIPP you have no access to the money, but as it is a pension, your child can only access it when they turn 55.

However, one of the greatest advantages to any investor is time, and the longer money is invested, the greater returns it will make (as long as you don’t pick bad investments).

Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell and Bestinvest all offer junior SIPPs, which you can compare here.