How can it stand so much so little? The rich list of the Sunday Times 2025 highlights a divided nation.
In a year of economic assembly and political uncertainty, the last Times Sunday List of Sunday Offers a breathtaking overview in the amazing richness concentrated in the hands of a few privileged. The 2025 edition of the annual classification reveals not only who holds the keys to the fortune of Great Britain, but how deeply the wealth is disconnected from the daily struggles of millions.
While the United Kingdom now has 156 billionaires, compared to 165 in 2024, this decline still leaves an astonishing number of ultra-rich individuals at the top of the economic scale. In fact, the combined wealth of the richest people in the United Kingdom remains astronomical – even while more and more families are counting on food banks, housing costs soar and public services continue to cring under tension.
Perhaps the most striking, the personal fortune of King Charles III increased by 30 million pounds sterling in the past year, now totaling 640 million pounds sterling. This increase has catapulted him into 20 places on the rich list, where he now shares the 238 ranking with the former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak And his wife, Akshata Murty.
Meanwhile, Gopi Hinduja and his family remain firmly anchored at the top, sitting on a fortune of 35.3 billion pounds sterling, down slightly compared to 37.2 billion pounds sterling last year. The Hinduja group Empire covers banks, energy and manufacturing. That one family can order such wealth is difficult to reconcile with the current mood of austerity and economic fragility in Great Britain.
An ultra-elite club
Here are the first five entries on the 2025 list:
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Hinduja and family gopi – 35.3 billion pounds sterling
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David and Simon Reuben and his family – 26.87 billion pounds sterling
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Sir Leonard Blavatnik – 25.73 billion pounds sterling
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Sir James Dyson and his family – 20.8 billion pounds sterling
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Idan ocer – 20.12 billion pounds sterling
The list continues to highlight familiar names with fortunes that have been stable or cultivated despite the world’s economic winds. The British magnate of Ukrainian origin Sir Leonard Blavatnik, for example, retains its position of one of the richest in the United Kingdom, having built its empire through chemicals, media and real estate.
Related: the best 10 best paid athletes in the 2025 world: wages, net value and total gains.
However, not everyone in the billionaire club did not escape unscathed. Sir Jim Ratcliffepartly owner of Manchester United And the founder of the giant of Ineos chemicals, underwent the greatest loss of a year on the list. Its wealth has dropped 6.5 billion pounds sterling, from 23.5 billion pounds sterling to 17 billion pounds sterling, still enough to secure its place among the richest, but a reminder that even the empires are not immune to market quarters.
Rising Royals and Lost Trust
King Charles“The increase in wealth has drawn special attention. Not only is he now richer than her deceased mother, Queen Elizabeth II, about 270 million pounds sterling, but he reached a tax on her fortune. Indeed, the British monarch has a legal exemption from these taxes, a rule that many ordinary citizens may have trouble swallowing, in particular as public discourse, more and more inherited privileges.
A large part of Charles’s wealth comes from the Duchy of Lancaster, a private domain that covers more than 18,000 hectares and is worth 654 million sterling pounds. It generates 20 million pounds sterling of annual profits for the monarch, a large part of the land titles in the north of England and a premium property in the center of London.
Political change, economic consequences
The compiler of the rich list, Robert Watts, underlined an increasing cold of the call of Great Britain at the ultra-riche. “Our number of billionaires is down and the combined wealth of those who appear in our research,” he told Pa Media.
He also noted that “less super rich in the world come to live in the United Kingdom” and have underlined the frustration of recent changes in tax policy-in particular the abolition of non-Dom tax status, which once allowed foreign residents to protect the world’s profits from British taxation.
“We expected the abolition of the status of non-Domaine to anger the wealthy abroad,” said Watts. This change of policy, led by former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and accelerated by the current Chancellor Rachel Reeves, is expected to raise 12.7 billion pounds sterling over five years.
It is a necessary recalibration, affirms the criticisms of the extreme concentration of wealth – but it also sent undulations to the London luxury housing market and the elite financial circles.
Familiar faces, flashy fortune
Beyond conference rooms and royal domains, celebrities always find their way on the rich list. Pop stars like Ed Sheeran (370 million pounds Sterling), Harry Styles (225 million pounds sterling) and Dua Lipa (115 million pounds sterling) made appearances, with Dua Lipa, 29, the youngest person in the list of richest British under 40.
Last: Steven Seagal and the former Ranch of California from Kelly Lebrock brought into account $ 14.5 million.
Couples of power like David and Victoria Beckham, the legend of F1, Sir Lewis Hamilton, and the emblematic interpreter Sir Elton John.
But it is worth asking: what does the lasting fascination say for extreme richness about us?
A greater image – and a glimmer of hope
Even if we are emerging from the riches of the richest in Great Britain, the gap between them and the average citizen feels more and more uncontrollable. The rich list makes a fascinating reading, but also a reflection that gives to think. In a nation struggling with inequalities, crises of the cost of living and the systemic under-funding of the basic services, the existence of more than 150 billionaires seems an increasingly difficult contradiction to justify.
And yet, hope remains.
With a growing public speech around fair tax, sustainable investment and ethical governance, there are reasons to believe that the tide could turn to a more equitable future. While more and more people question the structures that allow such an extreme wealth to exist alongside generalized poverty, the call for reform becomes stronger.
If the United Kingdom can evolve towards policies that empower the many, not only a few, the future editions of the rich list could reflect not only who is the richest-but how this wealth is shared and used for the greater good.