The business hopes to double in size to 1,000 brokers in the next three to four years and just this month welcomed eight new trainees to its Broker Academy.

It received more than 750 applications from a range of interested people from backgrounds including teaching and financial services. The applicants also included university graduates and estate agents.

Just Mortgages started with 100 brokers but less than five years later there are now more than 500 and the plan is to be at 1,000 advisers by 2023/24.

Brokers who work at Just Mortgages can be fully employed or self-employed. The employed division has around 160 brokers and they tend to be based in Spicerhaart estate agents but some are now home based.

The self-employed arm, which was set up in October 2017 now has 345 advisers and looking to grow to 460 by this time next year. Self-employed brokers have the best of both worlds here as they are independent but are supported in many ways which makes the Just Mortgages proposition different in the market place.

They can even expand their own business if they want to and 15 self-employed brokers have taken on new staff in recent months with the assistance of Just Mortgages’ principal growth training programme.

Just Mortgages also has a new build division which started with eight advisers at the beginning of 2019 and now has 20 brokers with plans to increase this to 34 in the next year.

A new string to Just Mortgages’ bow is the launch of Just Wealth to complement the whole financial plan for its customers. The growth plan is to have 25 advisers by the end of 2021.

John Phillips, group operations director at Just Mortgages, said: “Most of our mortgage brokers are self-employed and we are growing every month. One of the side effects of the Covid pandemic, in a good way, has been former brokers returning to the mortgage industry.

“Mortgager advisers who moved career in the past, perhaps to run a pub or a restaurant, have been forced to rethink their employment opportunities, which have been dire for those in industries such as hospitality. These former brokers are rejoining at a very busy time as home buyers, buy-to-let investors and those seeking to remortgage need good advice.”