There’s no right or wrong way to target a life-changing passive income. I can invest in buy-to-let property, for example, or try and search out a high-yield savings account. Franchising is also rapidly growing in popularity for those seeking extra income.

But for me, there’s no better way to aim for a big second income than investing on the London Stock Exchange. There’s lots of different ways I can put my money to work. And I don’t have to worry about the high startup costs or day-to-day hassle that some of those other methods involve.

If I had a spare £9,000 — and was able to add extra cash every month for 30 years — here’s how I’d target a regular monthly passive income of almost £1,400.

The easy way

Given the strong performance of UK share indices, I don’t see a reason to invest my money elsewhere. The FTSE 100’s delivered a healthy average annual return of 7% since its inception in 1984.

The FTSE 250, meanwhile, has provided an excellent yearly return of 11% over the long term. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns, but these numbers are pretty encouraging.

There’s a downside to choosing individual stocks to buy. It’s essential that investors conduct detailed research before putting their cash on the line, and to regularly review their portfolios. Poring over company reports, economic data, broker notes and other resources are essential for successful investing.

But this shouldn’t put investors off. The potential returns on offer make this all worthwhile, in my book.

What’s more, investors can reduce the amount of research they need to do by purchasing an exchange-traded fund (ETF), which spreads money across a wide basket of stocks.

The iShares Edge MSCI World Quality Factor UCITS ETF’s (LSE:IWQU) one such instrument I think’s worth serious consideration.

A top fund?

This fund contains a subset of global stocks with sound records of “strong and stable earnings”. Today, it owns shares in almost 300 companies, a characteristic that also helps investors to spread risk.

With a huge bias towards the US — almost three-quarters of its holdings are based in the States — it includes heavyweight shares including Nvidia, Apple, Visa and Coca-Cola.

Some of its overseas stocks include Denmark’s pharma giant Novo Nordisk, and the Dutch technology group ASML. UK holdings include AstraZeneca and RELX.

One drawback could be the fund’s large exposure to US tech stocks. A 24.17% weighting could leave it vulnerable in the event of a global economic downturn. But the potential for large long-term returns still make it worth a close look, to me.

That second income

Since its inception in October 2014, this iShares global ETF’s delivered an average annual return of 11.02%. If this continues, it could turn a £5,000 lump sum investment today into £134,337 after 30 years.

That’s good. But if I’d invested just an extra £100 a month in the fund, I’d have made an impressive £416,014. This would then be enough to give me a passive income of around £1,400 a month (£1,387 to be exact), based on an annual drawdown rate of 4%.