Curious to see how the net worth of your household stacks up against the rest of your fellow citizens in the UK? Enter your household net worth in the calculator below and it will show you where you stack up on the curve.
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Usage Guide
Remember that your household net worth is how much you and your immediate family/partner own in total value minus anything you owe. For example, you’d account for savings, liquid money, housing, pension funds, and other assets considered high-value. You’d then subtract any debts you owe, such as any mortgages, vehicle loans, credit card bills, student loans, and unsecured loans.
The calculator shows how your household net worth stacks up in percentile terms in comparison to the rest of the UK households. The result is shown both in text format and graphically.
What is the median net worth by household in the UK?
The median total wealth per UK household is thought to be around £302,000. All of these figures – including those in the table – comprise of assets, properties, pensions and physical wealth.
Delving deeper into wealth distribution reveals stark disparities among different economic tiers. The top 1% of households in Great Britain hold significant wealth, with their net worth exceeding £3.6 million. Conversely, the bottom 10% live with markedly less, their wealth amounting to £15,400 or even lower. Despite this broad economic gap, the Gini coefficient, which measures wealth inequality, has maintained a level of stability over the last 14 years. This suggests that, despite the apparent wealth disparities, the distribution has not significantly worsened over this period.
Striking differences in wealth also emerge when broken down by age groups. Households led by individuals aged 55 to just under the State Pension age hold the highest median wealth, standing at an impressive £553,400. This amount is a staggering 25 times higher than the wealth of households headed by younger individuals aged 16 to 24 years. These findings underscore the role that age and career progression play in wealth accumulation.
The composition of wealth differs significantly across various economic tiers. The least wealthy households predominantly hold their wealth in physical assets, such as vehicles or other non-home property.
Net financial wealth typically constitutes the least substantial part of total wealth for the majority of households. Nevertheless, it becomes much more substantial at the upper end of the wealth spectrum. Specifically, the top 1% of households hold an amount of financial wealth that surpasses the combined financial wealth of the entire bottom 80% of the population.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, households in the mid-range have their largest share of wealth tied up in property – typically their primary home/residence. For the most affluent households, their wealth is primarily concentrated in their pensions.
Household Wealth Inequality in the UK
Economists use something called the Gini Coefficient to measure wealth and income-based inequality. The range of the scale is between 0 and 1, where a value of 0 would imply that everyone is perfectly equal; whereas 1 would imply perfect inequality. Think of the score in terms of golf, where the lower the score, the better the outcome.
In the UK, the Gini coefficient for income was actually a decent value of 0.36 in 2020. For wealth however this skews to a worse figure of 0.6. Diving down further, the greatest sources of wealth inequity in the UK are from net financial wealth and private pensions.
The chart below shows sources of wealth inequality in the UK by region.
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