Wealth and Assets Survey
What UK wealth actually looks like
Britain measures this properly, and almost nobody reads it. Here is what the Office for National Statistics found, with the figures taken from the datasets rather than the headlines written about them.
The finding worth knowing
Up a quarter. Down seven per cent.
Between 2006 and 2022, median household wealth outside pensions rose from £146,600 to £181,700 — a gain of about 24%. Adjust for inflation and the same households went from £195,200 to £181,700, a fall of about 7%.
Both numbers are true. Only one of them is about what people can buy. It is the same distinction every projection on this site insists on, and here it is at national scale: sixteen years of apparent progress that was, in real terms, a slow decline.
- In today’s money
- In cash
Office for National Statistics, Wealth and Assets Survey, July 2006 to June 2008, through to April 2020 to March 2022. Source
What it is made of
Three quarters of it never appears in a bank account
Three quarters of it sits in two things that never appear in a bank account.
- Property
- 40%
- Net of the mortgage secured on it.
- Private pensions
- 35%
- Invisible until you go looking for it.
- Financial
- 14%
- Savings, ISAs, investments — the part people think of as wealth.
- Physical
- 10%
- Vehicles, contents, valuables.
These sum to 99%, not 100. The ONS rounds each component to a whole percent and we publish them as published rather than scaling them to look tidy. Office for National Statistics, Wealth and Assets Survey, April 2020 to March 2022.
By age, and by where you live
The spread is wider than the averages suggest
Median household wealth runs from £15,200 in the 16 to 24 band to £502,500 at 65 to 74 — about 33 times. Across the country the gap is south east £489,800 against north east £179,900. The all-household median is £293,700.
- 16 to 24
- £15,200
- 25 to 34
- £109,800
- 35 to 44
- £209,600
- 45 to 54
- £301,900
- 55 to 64
- £496,500
- 65 to 74
- £502,500
- 75 and above
- £373,100
These are household figures by age of the household head, not individual figures, and ONS total wealth includes physical wealth such as vehicles and contents. They are stated in April 2020 to March 2022 prices, so they understate today's cash amounts. Office for National Statistics, Wealth and Assets Survey, April 2020 to March 2022, published 24 January 2025.
Where you sit in this
These are households, not people, and a median is not a target. The useful thing is not the comparison but the composition: if three quarters of national wealth is property and pensions, and your own figure is mostly a savings balance, that is worth knowing.
The Swealth letter
One letter a week, on Thursday
British money, with the figures traced to where they came from.