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Britain wealthiest people have grown even rich over the last year.
The latest Sunday Times Rich List has just been published, showing that the combined wealth of the UK’s 350 wealthiest individuals and families rose by 1.4% in the last year to £784bn.
Britain’s total of billionaires has inched up by just one, to 157. After peaking at 177 in 2022, the billionaire count had fallen for three years running.
And while this huge wealth pile could intensify calls for sharper taxes on the rich, the Rich List also shows some evidence that billionaires have left the country to avoid wealth taxes.
Robert Watts, compiler of the Rich List, explains:
double quotation mark“This year’s Rich List is a tale of two exoduses. One in six of the individuals and families who appeared on the list two years ago don’t feature this time.
“Many foreign billionaires who have been living in the UK have also dropped out because they have moved away. We have also seen a sharp rise in the number of British nationals now resident in Dubai, Switzerland and Monaco. As UK nationals these people remain on our Rich List - wherever they now live.
“These two exoduses pose challenges for the UK economy and its public finances. Will more of the wealthy now set up or grow their ventures overseas and in doing so create fewer jobs here? How much tax – if any – will Rachel Reeves’ Treasury be able to extract from those affluent Brits who have now left the country.”
Topping the list, again, are the Hinduja family, worth £38bn through their Indian conglomerate Hinduja Group. This year, the award is shared by “Sanjay and Dheeraj Hinduja and family”, after the head of Britain’s richest family, Gopichand Hinduja, died last November.
Other notable names on the top ten are the Reuben family, for their property interests, the Weston family (whose AB Foods business owns Primark), crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne (of which more in a moment) and Revolut co-founder Nik Storonksy.
Here’s the top 10:
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Sanjay and Dheeraj Hinduja and family: £38bn
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David and Simon Reuben and family: £27.971bn
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Sir Leonard Blavatnik: £26.852bn
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Idan Ofer: £24.481bn: £24.481bn
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Guy, George, Alannah and Galen Weston and family: £18.939bn
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Christopher Harborne: £18.177bn
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Nik Storonsky: £16.411bn
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Alex Gerko: £16.006bn
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Sir Jim Ratcliffe: £15.194bn
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Igor and Dmitry Bukhman: £14.26bn
The rankings are based on estimated wealth as of April 24, 2026.
To get onto the list (onto 350th place) you need £340m – a drop of £10m, which Watts calls “another indicator of the sluggish economic environment.”
The agenda
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1.30pm BST: NY Empire State manufacturing index
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2.15pm BST: US industrial production report for April
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5pm BST: Russian GDP and inflation report
