Building a Diversified Income Machine

You've spent seven episodes building the toolkit — gross vs net yield, the £500 allowance trap, your FIRE number, yield traps, withholding tax by country, ISA vs GIA placement, and contribution rate as the biggest lever. Now the question is: what should the portfolio itself actually look like? Most UK dividend investors end up holding banks, oil companies, tobacco stocks, and a couple of consumer staples. Ten names, different tickers — feels diversified. But in 2020, the PRA told banks to suspend dividends. Shell cut for the first time since the Second World War — a 66% reduction. BP followed with a 50% cut. Total UK dividends fell 44% to £61.9 billion. Financials alone accounted for £16.6 billion in cuts; oil and gas another £8 billion. If your portfolio was concentrated in those two sectors, your income collapsed overnight. The problem isn't the number of stocks — it's what dimensions you're diversifying across. This episode breaks down three: payment frequency (most UK stocks pay in May and September, leaving months empty), geographic diversification (the FTSE 100 is approximately 26% financials and less than 1% technology — adding international stocks costs withholding tax but opens sectors that barely exist in the UK market), and sector concentration (just three sectors — financials, oil, and mining — contribute roughly 47-48% of all FTSE 100 dividends). The practical check is three questions: what percentage of your dividend income comes from a single sector? Are there months with zero income? And how much comes from UK versus international sources? You don't need perfect balance — you just need to know where the concentration is, so it's a choice and not a surprise. See your income concentration across sectors, geographies, and payment months in Nestor's six diversification views — spot the gaps yourself rather than waiting for the next market shock to reveal them.From the team behind Nestor – Dividend Trackerhttps://www.nestordividendtracker.co.uk