As I'm not a financial advisor I can't give you advice. However, without knowing your situation and assuming you have no debts which need to be paid off, and also that you are a taxpayer it makes sense to use your annual ISA allowance. With a 10 year time frame equities will hopefully have recovered by then so in your shoes I'd probably opt for five good equity income funds (unit trusts) and put �1000 in each under an ISA wrapper., having the dividends reinvested. Alternatively, I'd might opt for a 60% equity income and 40% growth portfolio. If you don't want to use a financial advisor, check out the Hargreaves Lansdown website (h-l.co.uk) and look at the Fund Research section. There a lot of useful information on there and it might help you better understand the risks if you're a first time investor.