Out of Britain’s 10,910 “ultra high net wealth” residents, the majority (75%) have been found to be entirely self-made, with only 13% having inherited their wealth.
The UK now has a greater proportion of self-made ultra rich individuals than any other country in Europe, although numerically Germany has more (17,820) – making it the second largest ultra rich population in the world after the US.
Britain’s share of self-made multi-millionaires is also much higher than in Germany (41%), Switzerland (43%), Italy (41%), Turkey (55%), and Hong Kong (55%).
The change from inherited to self-made wealth in Britain has been picking up over the last three decades, with the result that the UK’s 75% compares interestingly to the 76% of self-made wealth in the US.
But just as interesting is the fact that Australia’s self-made super rich number 79%, China’s 91% and South Africa’s 77%.
The latest World Ultra Wealth Report from UBS also shows that while 23% of Britain’s high net wealth residents made their money in finance, banking, investment and real estate, the vast majority made it from industries and businesses outside the financial sector.
There were far fewer super-rich individuals elsewhere in Europe, such as France (4,490), Italy (2,075) and Spain (1,625).
Portugal was shown to have 870 individuals of ultra high net wealth, up from 775 in 2012, and numerically more than Denmark (740), Ireland (580) and Finland (400).
Overall in Europe, including Russia and Turkey, there were 58,065 super wealthy individuals in 2013.
