Number of UK Millionaires at Lowest Level Since Global Financial Crisis
There are fewer millionaires in Britain than at any time since the Global Financial Crisis, according to new inflation-adjusted estimates from the Adam Smith Institute.
The latest records from our Millionaire Tracker show that there were 442,000 sterling millionaires in Britain, down by 7% since 2024.
This is driven by falling real asset prices, a low household savings rate and the emigration of high net-worth individuals (HNWIs).
Millionaires are leaving the UK for a number of reasons, including high levels of current taxation, threats of further increases (including a wealth tax), the abolition of the non-dom regime, and a culture which is hostile to wealth-creators.
Many millionaires are wealth creators who set up businesses, employ people and fund Britain’s public services. In fact, the top 1% of earners pay 29.1% of income tax.
The Adam Smith Institute is calling for policies to make the UK a more attractive place for HNWIs, including abolishing inheritance tax, phasing out Capital Gains Tax and reforming the non-doms tax regime.
The Adam Smith Institute, a leading economics think tank, has updated its Millionaire Tracker. This is an annual estimate for the number of millionaires in Britain, based on new data from the Office of National Statistics.
The number of constant-price sterling millionaires is just 442,000. This is the lowest level since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis decimated asset values and is 7% lower than 2024.
The definition of a constant-price sterling millionaire is an adult British resident who has at least £1 million in individual net worth, across all real and financial asset classes, including pensions and property, measured in constant 2025 prices.
The long-term fall in the number of sterling millionaires is driven by a number of factors. Higher interest rates, as well as a lack of confidence in the British economy, have mechanically reduced the inflation-adjusted values of pension pots and high-end London property. Moreover, Britain’s low savings rate has reduced the pace at which households make themselves millionaires. Finally, and perhaps most concerningly, there has been a well-documented trend of high net-worth individuals either leaving Britain or no longer choosing to move here.
Millionaires are leaving the country for a number of reasons, including the abolition of non-dom tax status, high levels of general taxation, and a hostile culture for wealth creators.
Calls for a wealth tax are particularly misguided in this context. France, Austria, and the Netherlands all abandoned theirs after seeing vast outflows of millionaires or other avoidance behaviour. Given Britain is already haemorrhaging wealth, we could only expect similar results here.
Every millionaire that leaves is a loss to the country. Both foreign- and British-origin millionaires bring jobs, capital, connections, and ideas to this country, which can create substantial wealth for other Brits. Moreover, they pay a disproportionate share of tax. This is especially true of income tax, which is the Exchequer’s largest source of tax revenue and where the top 1% of earners pay 29.1% of income tax.
To reverse this trend, the Adam Smith Institute calls on the Government to make the tax environment more welcoming to wealth creators. In particular, this means abolition of inheritance tax, cuts to Capital Gains Tax and an international competitiveness assessment on the UK’s tax and regulatory treatment of non-doms and High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs).
Andrew Griffith MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade, said:
"Whatever their personal finances, everyone should care about Britain having fewer millionaires to contribute to the tax pot and creating jobs and businesses here. It's a competitive world and when young and ambitious people are voting with their feet and leaving your country that's a shameful sign."
Robert Jenrick MP, Reform UK's Shadow Chancellor, said:
“Labour’s policies are driving successful people away from Britain, as this latest report from the ASI shows.
Each millionaire that leaves means less money for the NHS or defence, higher taxes for working people, and fewer good jobs. We can’t build an economy on envy.
Reform will unashamedly attract successful people back to Britain.”
Mitchell Palmer, Economist at the Adam Smith Institute, said:
“The decline in millionaires may be greeted as a success by some on the Left, but it should instead be viewed as a warning signal. Every millionaire that leaves means less capital for British businesses, fewer international connections, and weaker entrepreneurial spirit in the economy.
Recently mooted anti-wealth proposals, such as a wealth tax or equalizing the capital gains tax rate with income tax, will only make this problem worse.
Instead, the Government should focus on making Britain an attractive place for ambitious people to build and keep their wealth. This includes cutting or abolishing Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax.”
James Quarmby, Partner at StephensonHarwood, said:
“News that the U.K.’s millionaires has dropped to the lowest level since 2007 should be a matter of great concern to government. It is this cohort which is crucial to private sector businesses and consequently to our tax base.
Wealth and work is increasingly mobile and it is very easy for individuals to move themselves, their money and their businesses elsewhere if sufficiently motivated to do so.
The UK’s increasingly hostile tax regime and general attitude towards wealth must surely be a factor behind this trend.
It is important that the government recognises this problem and strives to create a business friendly environment to allow our private sector to grow and to contribute to our tax base.”
-ENDS-
Methodology:
The ASI Millionaire Tracker estimates the number of UK millionaires each year from 1998 to the present. Because the UK has no up-to-date register of personal wealth — the ONS Wealth and Assets Survey runs only every two years, and the tax system records income rather than assets — the figure has to be estimated. The tracker starts from total UK household net worth in the ONS National Accounts (everything households own, from housing to pensions to shares, minus what they owe), which stood at about £10.75 trillion in 2024. It then applies a Pareto distribution — a standard model for the top tail of wealth — to estimate how many people sit above the £1 million threshold. The single Pareto parameter (α ≈ 2.919) is fitted across all nine waves of the Wealth and Assets Survey at once, chosen to minimise the gap between the millionaire-household counts the model predicts and those the survey actually recorded. Fitted wave by wave, the parameter ranges from about 2.6 to 3.2, so the constant value is an approximation of a distribution that shifts somewhat over time.
The tracker produces two headline figures. The nominal USD measure counts people worth more than $1 million, matching the definition UBS uses in its Global Wealth Report and allowing a direct cross-check; because it relies on the Bank of England's USD/GBP rate, a stronger pound lifts the count. The second is a more conservative real-terms sterling measure, counting millionaires in constant 2025 pounds to strip out inflation and currency swings. The method tracks year-to-year changes in the millionaire count more reliably than the absolute level, which remains uncertain — partly because the Pareto parameter is calibrated on Wealth and Assets Survey data but applied to National Accounts wealth figures, which are higher-frequency but defined differently.
Notes to editors:
For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact Sebastian Charleton, press@adamsmith.org | 0758 477 8207
The Adam Smith Institute is one of the world’s leading think tanks. It is ranked first in the world among independent think tanks and as the best domestic and international economic policy think tank in the UK by the University of Pennsylvania. Independent, non-profit and non-partisan, the Institute is at the forefront of making the case for free markets and a free society, through education, research, publishing, and media outreach.