Economic security

Almost half of Britain's private wealth owned by top 10% of households

Britain’s richest households have pulled further ahead of the rest of the population as house prices have accelerated, with the top 10% now owning almost half of the country’s £11.1tn total private wealth.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the average household was worth £225,100 in 2012-14, when it carried out its latest survey of the country’s assets.

Since the previous survey two years earlier, the top tenth of households had seen a 21% increase in their wealth, including property and shares. That was three times as fast as the increase over the same period for the poorest half of households, who saw their wealth rise by 7%.