In the graying industry that is the financial advisor profession, where are the young folks working? Among registered investment advisors, chances are they’re plying their trade at one of the larger firms.

The average age of advisors at RIA firms is 52.4, and nearly half (47%) are 55 and older, according to Cerulli Associates. Only 7% of all advisors at RIAs are under the age of 35. But at firms with at least $1 billion in assets, advisors in the under-35 crowd on average represent 20% of the workforce. That’s because bigger RIA firms have significant scale and infrastructure, and they put more emphasis on recruiting and training junior advisors.

“There’s a more defined career track within those firms,” says Kenton Shirk, associate director at Cerulli. “They’re hiring young people and growing them into paraplanner and service advisor roles.”

Sounds logical, but a growing number (and that’s a relative term without quantification) of advisors in the Generation Y cohort are striking out on their own and starting firms at a much younger age than the prior generation could ever dream about. New technologies, evolving product platforms and changing attitudes among younger clients are slowly reshaping the service model and enabling young advisors to open up one-person shops from anywhere.

How big is that trend? Hard to say. Gen Y advisors who’ve started their own firms are raising the group’s collective profile online and at industry conferences, and in doing so maybe they’re leveraging their voice beyond what the actual numbers merit. But it sounds like the basis for a study by one of the industry’s research groups.