According to the 14th annual Evolution/Revolution report released this autumn by the Investment Adviser Association (IAA) and National Regulatory Services (NRS), the largest investment advisory firms continue to corral the lion’s share of assets under management in the space.

The report examined annual updates filed by investment advisors registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and is based on information on file with the SEC as of April 7, 2014. Among the key findings is that total regulatory assets under management (RAUM) were $61.7 trillion, or nearly 13% greater than during the year-earlier period. Meanwhile, the total number of SEC-registered investment advisors nudged up by 3.4%, to 10,895.

In aggregate, advisory firms employ more than 700,000 people and serve almost 28 million clients, which is 9.3% more clients than the previous year.

The majority of SEC-registered investment advisors are small businesses, as more than half of all RIAs (57.1%) said they have 10 or fewer full-time and part-time non-clerical employees, and 87.9% have fewer than 50 such employees. And in that vein, advisors with less than $1 billion in RAUM account for 71.5% of all SEC-registered advisors. That said, they manage just 3.5% of all reported RAUM.

“The data shows that the investment advisor industry continues to grow across all market segments and by every measure,” said John Gebauer, NRS’s managing director. “It is evident that small advisors join the advisor ranks each year and constitute the largest market segment, yet due to the growth across segments, the concentration of RAUM with the largest advisors has also increased, and this year the top 1% of advisors manage more than 52% of the total RAUM.”

The IAA is a Washington, D.C.-based trade group representing SEC-registered investment advisors. Lakeville, Conn.-based NRS provides compliance and registration products and services for investment advisors, broker-dealers, hedge funds, investment companies and insurance institutions.