Family offices are set to grow at a rapid pace as the ultra-rich look for personalised services to handle their wealth. As family finances become more sophisticated and more global, so will the services that family offices offer. That, in turn, may well require them to outsource key operations such as legal, risk management and tax planning to prime broker s and other providers.
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No end in sight for the family office boom
Demand for the services of family offices has grown strongly in recent years, fuelled by a rise in the number of wealthy individuals worldwide and the increasing complexity of managing substantial family fortunes. As of September 2024, there were an estimated 8030 single family offices in the world, up from roughly 6130 in 2019, according to Deloitte. The global professional services company expects this number to grow by 75% to more than 10,720 by 2030. It also anticipates that family offices’ total estimated assets under management (AUM) will rise by 73% over the same period, from $3.1 trillion to $5.4 trillion.1
A boom in wealth creation globally, together with increased wealth concentration, successful transfers of generational wealth, robust private-equity and M&A markets, and the pursuit of more customised investment strategies and services lie behind this growth, says Deloitte. It adds that the estimated wealth of families with family offices stood at $5.5 trillion as of September 2024, up from $3.3 trillion in 2019, and it expects the figure to grow to $9.5 trillion by 2030 – a 189% increase.
Increasing interest in the wealth-preservation, estate-management and succession-planning services provided by family offices is accompanying the rise in the number of wealthy individuals. The increasing intricacy of global investments, tax structures and regulatory environments is also compelling families to seek professional management, as is growing interest in sustainable investing and philanthropy. Nearly one in five family offices reported having more than 10% of their portfolio allocated to sustainable investments, with almost one in three having allocations greater than 25%, according to Citibank.2 There is also growing interest in alternative investments, such as private markets, as outlined in our 2025 State of the Hedge Fund industry report.
Number of family offices worldwide
Rising Asia
North America remains the largest market, accounting for 39% of all family offices in 2024, and Deloitte believes the region will continue to drive the sector’s expansion. It anticipates that the number of US family offices will nearly double from 2210 in 2019 to 4190 in 2030. However, wealth is also growing rapidly in other parts of the world, particularly the Asia-Pacific region. Indeed, Deloitte anticipates this area, which has already surpassed Europe in terms of the number of family offices, will outpace North America in terms of speed of growth between September 2024 and 2030.
This growth reflects Asia’s rapid economic expansion and the increasing transfer of wealth between the generations. McKinsey, for example, estimates that, between 2023 and 2030, ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) and high-net-worth (HNW) families in the Asia-Pacific region are set to experience an intergenerational wealth transfer estimated at $5.8 trillion. McKinsey adds that UHNW families are expected to account for about 60% of the total wealth transfer, and many are setting up family offices to facilitate the process.3 Hong Kong and Singapore are the leading centres for family offices in the Asia-Pacific region, with the number having quadrupled since 2020, to about 4000 across both jurisdictions. The two financial centres are battling for control of Chinese and local family wealth, as well as attracting families from countries such as India and elsewhere in Asia.
The Middle East is also seeing rapid growth in demand for family offices, with the United Arab Emirates emerging as a key hub, as analysed in our 2025 State of the Hedge Fund Industry report. Dubai and Abu Dhabi, with their low taxes and levels of regulation, and their increasing sophistication as financial centres, are attracting the wealthy from around the world. This trend is forecast to continue: Henley & Partners anticipates that the number of people with over $100 million in assets in both emirates will more than double over the next 10 years.4
Outside help required to manage growth
The rapidly growing demand for family office services will inevitably provide challenges. In Asia, for example, demand is far outpacing the qualified talent needed to manage that wealth and related services, potentially leading to bidding wars, according to a report from Empaxis.5 The report added that finding qualified and experienced talent in areas such as managing family finances, asset management, ESG/impact investing, succession planning and legal matters is a particular challenge, with the talent war in the banking and finance sector in Hong Kong, for example, leading to 30% pay increases for new hires.
Adopting new technologies should help overcome any talent shortages and boost efficiency. It should also improve the client experience by enhancing transparency and allowing for better decision-making. Our 2025 State of the Hedge Fund industry report found huge interest in artificial intelligence with around half of the hedge fund managers, who are likely to hold similar views to family offices, who responded to our survey believing that the impact of AI in the following three years would be significant. Moreover, 17% believed it would prove a “gamechanger.”
According to Deloitte data quoted in November 2024, 43% of family offices worldwide had experienced a cyberattack in the previous 12–24 months, and 25% had experienced three or more attacks. Empaxis notes that family offices are less regulated than traditional wealth and asset managers, and tend to have fewer formalised procedures around data security, leaving them vulnerable to criminals targeting entities with large sums of money and weak controls.6
There are also short-term risks, as highlighted in our 2025 State of the Hedge Fund industry report . Our unique survey of hedge fund clients, including family offices, conducted for this report found that 51% were most concerned by geopolitical risk, while interest rates posed the greatest concern to 49% of respondents. Meanwhile, 43% were most concerned about volatility, 35% by inflation and 24% by the prospect of economic turbulence.
Family offices could seek help from outside specialists to overcome these challenges and fully exploit the huge opportunities that are likely to develop over the rest of this decade and beyond. Even without these challenges, they will almost certainly need to outsource key operations such as legal, risk management and tax planning to prime brokers such as IG Prime which has a wealth of experience in helping family offices, and other providers.
Sources
1 https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/about/press-room/global-edition-explores-the-rapid-expansion-family-offices-and-ffers-vision-of-the-future-landscape.html
2 https://www.privatebank.citibank.com/doc/family-office/global-family-office-2024-survey-insights.pdf.coredownload.inline.pdf
3 https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/asia-pacifics-family-office-boom-opportunity-knocks
4 https://www.henleyglobal.com/newsroom/press-releases/wealthiest-cities-report-2025
5 https://www.empaxis.com/blog/asian-family-offices
6 https://www.empaxis.com/blog/family-office-trends
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