Collection

Distribution of personal wealth statistics

This series contains statistics on identified personal wealth in the UK.

Distribution of Personal Wealth Statistics

The statistics are based on Inheritance Tax returns and include information on the distribution of wealth, liquid wealth, the assets held by estates and how those vary by age and gender. They also include new statistics on property, interest and dividend income based on HMRC’s Survey of Personal Incomes and Self Assessment returns. More information on this can be found in the published commentary.

Previous years

You can find tables for previous years on the National Archives website (both tables published on or before 2013 and tables published after 2013).

Commentary

Identified Wealth

“Identified wealth” is the wealth represented by estates passing on death each year and requiring a grant of representation, grossed up to reflect the living population using mortality rates. Not all estates require a grant of representation, and hence the figures given in this table do not represent the entire population. The “identified wealth” population for 2011 to 2013 was 30% (15.153 million) of the average UK adult population, and 27% (14.072 million) for 2014 to 2016.

Income from property, interest, dividends and other investments

Other information about these statistics

Published 28 September 2012
Last updated 31 January 2019 + show all updates
  1. Updated to include statistics for 2014 to 2016.

  2. Updated to notify users that the next edition of these statistics will be published in January 2019.

  3. Updated the eight existing tables with new data covering the period 2011 to 2013 and added four new tables.

  4. Updated text to reflect results from consultation on the future of the Personal Wealth National Statistics.

  5. Announced details of a consultation on the future of these statistics.

  6. First published.