£228 Billion and Counting: Why Your IR Strategy Can't Ignore Retail Investors

The first Winterflood UK Retail Investor Report landed this week, and the numbers should make every IR team sit up. In 2025, UK retail investors generated £228 billion in trade flow across nearly 26 million trades. That's not a rounding error. That's a market force.

For years, the received wisdom in investor relations has been simple: focus on the institutional investors, try to manage the analyst consensus and keep the top 20 holders happy. Retail investors? A nice to have that help provide liquidity and extra support around news flow. Perhaps a line or two in the Annual Report about “aiming to communicate with all stakeholders” or "broadening the shareholder base". But the empirical data from The Winterflood Report suggests that thinking is now dangerously outdated.

Consider the flow patterns. The FTSE 100 is estimated to have seen £52 billion of retail activity, but here's the telling detail: net outflows of £6.3 billion, with only 43 of 253 trading days recording net buying. Retail investors weren't passively holding blue chip companies, they were actively reallocating. Meanwhile, AIM stocks saw net inflows on 80% of all trading days. Retail capital was moving with purpose and it wasn't following the index trackers.

Winterflood's own analysis puts it plainly: retail investors "have an astute sense of trends and events, and how to navigate them." The data backs this up. They're not the unsophisticated punters of old City folklore. They're informed, active, and increasingly important.

The regulatory environment is catching up too. As of Monday, new rules make it easier for retail investors to access debt and equity capital markets directly. The direction of travel is clear: the UK Government wants to bolster domestic investment in the stock market, therefore retail participation will grow, not shrink.

So what does this mean for listed companies?

It means the channels you use to communicate matter more than ever. Retail investors don't necessarily read every announcement, corporate presentation or Annual Report... They scroll LinkedIn, watch YouTube, and consume content in formats designed for mobile screens and short(er) attention spans. If your investor communications consist of PDFs and webcast replays, you're speaking in a language this audience doesn't necessarily understand…

The opportunity is significant. Rolls-Royce, the most actively traded stock among retail investors in 2025, generated £4.5 billion in retail flow. Glencore and Lloyds followed close behind. These are companies that have, to varying degrees, become part of the retail conversation. Whether by accident or design, they've achieved visibility where it counts.

The question for IR teams isn't whether they should be trying to engage with retail investors, the Winterflood report makes it clear. They're already engaged, whether you're talking to them or not. The question is really whether you want to be part of the conversation, or are happy to simply watch it happen without you.

I’d say that for £228 billion of trade flow, it is worth finding out.