The most popular funds and trusts among retail investors in 2025

Interest in passive products tracking certain parts of the market soared in 2025, judging by what’s been in favour with AJ Bell DIY investors.

Tracker funds and ETFs (exchange-traded funds) featured heavily on the list of most popular funds as investors sought out convenience and lower costs. Rather than pay more for active management in the hope of outperformance, they’ve gone for the cheaper option to simply mirror what’s happening on the market.

The growth in popularity of passive funds is overwhelming. Only one name out of the top 15 most popular funds, ETFs and investment trusts among AJ Bell DIY investors this year was a truly active vehicle – JPMorgan Global Growth & Income. The rest were passive or a blend of the two.

Some people might expect ‘active’ to mean a fund manager hunting for individual stocks or bonds and regularly trading in and out of a curated portfolio. Active can also mean something else.

Seven active names on the most popular list have passive products under the bonnet, this encompasses AJ Bell’s fund range and Vanguard LifeStrategy’s funds. These names are only considered active funds because AJ Bell and Vanguard are making active decisions about asset allocation, but they use passive funds to get market exposure.

Passive funds

Pure-play passive funds on the most popular list facilitated broad access to companies around the world, exposure to gold, a specific focus on the technology sector, and to the UK and US markets.

Casting your net wide is an easy way to put your money to work in an ISA or pension.

Tracking a global equities index is a simple and low-cost way to invest. It’s like buying an assorted box of biscuits. Rather than spending ages in the supermarket choosing which brand or product type to buy, you just put the collection in your basket and get a multitude of different tastes and flavours.

A lot of people have a passive global equities fund as the backbone for a portfolio, with popular funds HSBC FTSE All World, Fidelity Index World and Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap Index all doing a similar job for investors. They track a specific basket of global shares – if the value of that basket (or index) goes up by a certain amount in a month, the funds should do the same minus any fees.

Active funds

AJ Bell funds were a hit with investors in 2025. The most popular fund from this range was the Adventurous one, which aims to achieve high growth over the long term. It invests mostly in shares, whereas its sister fund, CG AJ Bell Moderately Adventurous, also has a small weighting to bonds to help dial down the risk.

It’s noteworthy that a money market fund from Royal London appears high up the list of active fund preferences for DIY investors. This type of fund aims to deliver a return just above cash, suggesting some caution among investors or a preference to blend some lower-risk investments with higher-risk ones in a portfolio.

Fundsmith Equity managed to keep a space in the top 15 most popular active funds, despite ongoing underperformance, while Artemis Global Income caught investors’ attention in a year when some people’s appetite for US exposure started to wane.

The Artemis Global Income fund has much lower exposure to the US than the broader global stock market, and that was precisely what many individuals sought for their portfolios.

Investment trusts

Against a backdrop of activist investor disruption, mergers, manager changes and managed wind-downs, investment trusts still struck a chord with some investors.

The most popular trusts with AJ Bell DIY investors included stalwarts like City of London, a range of names that pay generous dividends, and specialists in certain areas including mining and renewables.