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Commons Briefing paper by Brigid Francis-Devine. It was first published on Wednesday, 5 March 2025. It was last updated on Monday, 3 November 2025.


Wealth in Great Britain

How is household wealth measured?

Household wealth is made up of four components:

  • net property wealth
  • net financial wealth
  • physical wealth
  • private pension wealth

What do Britain’s total wealth statistics show?

The Office for National Statistics’ main wealth dataset, the Wealth and Assets Survey, has become less reliable since the Covid-19 pandemic. The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) removed the Official Statistics accreditation from Wealth and Assets Survey statistics in June 2025 because they were “no longer of sufficient value or quality to meet users’ needs.” Wealth and Assets Survey statistics should therefore be treated with caution.

Median household wealth in Great Britain was £293,700 in the period April 2020 to March 2022. This is slightly higher in real terms than in April 2018 to March 2020. This increase was due to an increase in pension wealth: excluding private pensions, household wealth fell slightly. This is shown in the chart below. 

Chart shows median household wealth excluding private pensions between July 2008 to June 2010 and April 2020 to March 2022.

Source: ONS, Total Wealth: Wealth in Great Britain, 24 January 2025, Table 2.4

In April 2020 to March 2022, net property wealth made up 40% of household wealth in Great Britain, private pension wealth made up 35%, net financial wealth made up 14% and physical wealth made up 10%.

How significant is wealth inequality in Britain?

In March 2020 to April 2022, the Gini coefficient for total household wealth in Great Britain was 0.59. Wealth tends to be distributed more unequally than income: in 2022/23, the income Gini coefficient was 0.35 before housing costs and 0.39 after housing costs.

Financial wealth was the most unequally distributed component of wealth, while physical wealth was the least unequal. This is shown in the chart below.

In April 2020 to March 2022, the wealthiest 10% (decile) of households had wealth of £1,200,500 or more, while the least wealthy 10% had £16,500 or less. This is shown in the chart below.

Chart on the left shows Gini coefficients for household wealth. In March 2020 to April 2022, the Gini coefficient was 0.87 for net financial wealth, 0.68 for private pension wealth , 0.66 for net property wealth and 0.47 for physical wealth. Chart on the right shows median household wealth by income decile. The higher income deciles hold more wealth.

Source: ONS, Total Wealth: Wealth in Great Britain, 24 January 2025, Tables 2.3 and 2.5

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Secondary information

Type
Research briefing
Reference
CBP-10210 
Subjects
Equality Distribution Economic situation Personal income Pensions Property Wealth OECD countries
Contains statistics
Yes
Published by
Economic Policy and Statistics Section
House of Commons Library
Link
View this Research briefing on researchbriefings.parliament.uk