Trading apps now sit at the centre of UK retail trading and younger users are driving the shift

Britain’s New Retail Investor

RationalFX’s latest report points to a major behavioural shift in the UK retail market: trading is increasingly happening through digital platforms, and dedicated apps are becoming the clearest focal point for younger users. According to the report, the number of UK adults using online investment platforms nearly doubled between 2020 and 2024. By May 2024, around 7.9 million people, equal to 15 per cent of the population, were using these services. Within that wider digital move, roughly 1.6 million people were using dedicated trading apps, representing 3 per cent of the UK population.

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That makes app-based trading a sizeable market in its own right. RationalFX also notes that retail trading app downloads reached 15.1 million in 2023, underlining how quickly these products have entered the mainstream. But the report’s more revealing point is not just scale. It is who these users are and what they do once they are on the app. Nearly half of app users are aged 18 to 34, showing that mobile trading in Britain is being led heavily by younger adults rather than by older, more traditional investors.

The asset mix on these apps is also telling. RationalFX says 31 per cent of app users traded fractional shares, 20 per cent bought or sold cryptocurrencies, 8 per cent used apps for forex trading, and 6 per cent traded CFDs over a 12-month period. The report adds that crypto, forex, CFDs and commodities made up 28 per cent of trading activity on apps, compared with 10 per cent across non-advised platforms overall and just 3 per cent on consumer investment platforms. That gap makes one thing clear: apps are not simply a more convenient wrapper for traditional investing. They are the part of the market where higher-volatility behaviour is far more concentrated.

The report also suggests these platforms are shaping behaviour, not merely hosting it. Eleven per cent of trading app clients used copy or mirror trading services, meaning roughly one in nine app users were following strategies built by others. RationalFX also highlights the FCA’s findings on digital engagement practices such as push notifications and prize draws. Users in medium- and high-DEP groups were typically younger and more active, with nearly 30 per cent logging between 20 and 50 trading sessions a month, 21 per cent exceeding 50 sessions, and 3 per cent going beyond 100.

Time spent on the apps followed the same pattern. RationalFX says 80 per cent of low-DEP users spent up to an hour on trading apps, while only 58 per cent of medium- and high-DEP users stayed within that limit. By contrast, 40 per cent of medium- and high-DEP users spent more than an hour on the apps. That points to a direct link between engagement features and deeper user activity.