Here’s how many millionaires are left in the UK – and why the number keeps dropping
Key Points
- The Adam Smith Institute estimates 442,000 UK millionaires in 2025, the lowest since the 2008 crash and 7% down on 2024
- The count has fallen for four straight years from a 2021 peak of 1.07 million
- A millionaire here means £1 million in total net worth, including pensions and property, not cash alone
- Falling real pension and property values, low savings and emigration all contribute
- The figure is a statistical estimate, not an official count — the UK has no register of personal wealth
Britain is home to an estimated 442,000 sterling millionaires, the lowest total since the 2008 financial crisis, according to the Adam Smith Institute’s Millionaire Tracker.
The think tank published the updated figures at the end of July, drawing on new Office for National Statistics data. The count is 7% below 2024 and marks a fourth consecutive annual fall. At its peak in 2021, the tracker put the number at 1.07 million, having passed one million for the first time the year before.
The tracker defines a millionaire as an adult UK resident holding at least £1 million in individual net worth.
That figure covers everything a person owns across property, pensions, investments and cash, minus what they owe, measured in constant 2025 prices so that inflation does not inflate the count. Including pensions and housing matters, because for most people who cross the threshold those two assets make up the bulk of the total rather than cash or shares.
The Adam Smith Institute attributes the decline to three things:
- Higher interest rates and weaker confidence in the British economy have cut the inflation-adjusted value of pension pots and higher-end London property.
- A low household savings rate means fewer people accumulate their way past the threshold.
- The third factor is emigration, with the think tank pointing to high net-worth individuals leaving the country or choosing not to move here in the first place.
“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,” said Andrew Griffith, Shadow Business Secretary.
What the tracker actually measures
It should be noted that this number is a model, not a headcount. Britain keeps no current register of personal wealth, the ONS Wealth and Assets Survey runs only every two years, and the tax system records what people earn rather than what they own.
The tracker starts from total UK household net worth in the national accounts, which stood at roughly £10.75 trillion in 2024, then applies a statistical distribution to estimate how many individuals sit above £1 million.
The Adam Smith Institute states in its own methodology that the approach tracks year-to-year changes more reliably than the absolute level, which remains uncertain.
Evidence on how many wealthy people have actually left is mixed. HMRC recorded 60,700 residents with a permanent home abroad in the tax year ending April 2024. The 2025 Henley Private Wealth Migration Report claimed a wealth flight of 142,000 people, though this year’s edition acknowledged that other studies found departure rates among high earners were modest and limited to particular circumstances.
Call for tax changes
The Adam Smith Institute is calling on the government to abolish inheritance tax, cut capital gains tax rather than align it with income tax, and run an international competitiveness assessment on how the UK treats non-domiciled residents and high net-worth individuals.
It argues the group pays a disproportionate share of tax, citing the 29.1% of income tax paid by the top 1% of earners.
Non-dom status ended in April 2025. A replacement scheme exempts foreign earnings from UK tax for up to four years for new arrivals and for people returning after a decade abroad.
Chancellor John Healey delivers his first Budget on Wednesday 28 October, with Prime Minister Andy Burnham under pressure over how to close a projected spending gap.
