Wealthly
Average net worth by age in the UK: how do you compare?
Everyone secretly wants to know where they stand. The honest answer comes from the ONS Wealth and Assets Survey — and it says most of British wealth sits in exactly the places your banking app never looks: your home and your pensions. Here are the real numbers by age, the caveats that make them fair, and how to work out your own in 15 minutes.
The headline numbers
The best data we have comes from the Office for National Statistics' Wealth and Assets Survey — the big periodic survey of household wealth in Great Britain. The latest published round covers April 2020 to March 2022, and it puts median household total wealth at £293,700.
Broken down by the age of the head of the household, the medians look like this:
| Age of household head | Median household total wealth |
|---|---|
| 16–24 | £15,200 |
| 25–34 | £109,800 |
| 35–44 | £209,600 |
| 45–54 | £301,900 |
| 55–64 | £496,500 |
| 65–74 | £502,500 |
| 75+ | £373,100 |
Two things jump out. First, the slope: median wealth at 65–74 is roughly 33 times what it is at 16–24. Wealth in the UK is overwhelmingly something that accumulates with time — through house prices, pension contributions and compounding — rather than something earned quickly. Second, the drop after 75, as retirees spend down pensions and savings, downsize, and gift money to family.
Before you compare yourself to that table, read the caveats below. These are household figures, not individual ones, and the data was collected in 2020–22. They're best treated as rough benchmarks, not a scoreboard.
Three caveats that change how you read the table
1. It's per household, not per person
A couple's combined wealth counts as one household. If you're single, comparing your individual net worth against these numbers is unfair to you — very roughly, a dual-adult household figure reflects two people's lifetime accumulation. There's no perfect adjustment, but bear it in mind before concluding you're behind.
2. The data is a few years old
The survey window was April 2020 to March 2022, and the ONS published the results in 2025 — that's simply how long a survey of this size takes. House prices, pension values and inflation have all moved since. The shape of the curve is durable; the exact pound figures will have drifted upwards for most age groups.
3. Median is not average — and the average is misleading
The median is the middle household: half have more, half have less. The mean average is dragged far higher by a small number of very wealthy households — cited around £305,000 and up depending on the round and method — which is why "average net worth" headlines often feel unreachable. The median is the honest comparison point.
What actually makes up UK wealth
This is the part most people get wrong, because the apps on their phone get it wrong too. In the ONS data, household wealth splits like this:
- Net property wealth: 40% — your home's value minus the mortgage
- Private pension wealth: 35% — workplace and personal pensions, including the promised value of final-salary schemes
- Net financial wealth: 14% — savings, ISAs, investments, minus debts
- Physical wealth: 10% — vehicles and household contents
Three-quarters of British household wealth is property and pensions — precisely the two things a bank feed never shows. If you've only ever judged your finances by the balances in a banking or budgeting app, you've been looking at a sliver of the picture, and probably the smallest slice of your actual wealth.
A worked example. A 41-year-old with a £320,000 home, £210,000 left on the mortgage, an £85,000 workplace pension, £14,000 in ISAs and savings, an £9,000 car and £3,000 on a credit card:
Property equity £110,000 + pension £85,000 + financial £11,000 (£14,000 − £3,000) + car £9,000 = net worth £215,000 — slightly ahead of the 35–44 median, even though their bank app only ever showed them the £14,000.
How to work out your own number in 15 minutes
- Home: take a realistic current value (the Land Registry House Price Index is the sober source — here's why we prefer it to portal estimates) and subtract your outstanding mortgage.
- Pensions: gather your latest DC pot values; for a final-salary scheme, multiply the promised annual income by ~20 as a rule-of-thumb capital value; here's the full method including the State Pension.
- Financial: savings, ISAs, investments — minus credit cards, loans and overdrafts.
- Physical: your car's realistic private-sale value. (Skip the sofa; contents estimates add noise, not insight.)
- Add it all up. That's your number.
If you'd rather not do it on paper, the free Wealthly net worth calculator walks through the same steps in about a minute, with no signup.
Ahead or behind: what moves the number at each stage
Benchmarks are only useful if they change what you do next. The honest levers, by life stage:
- 20s: the number that matters most isn't net worth — it's your savings rate and avoiding expensive debt. The medians are low because almost nobody has property or meaningful pension wealth yet.
- 30s: this is where the curve bends: getting on the housing ladder (if it makes sense for you) and, above all, not opting down from a decent employer pension match. The 25–34 → 35–44 jump in the table is mostly these two decisions compounding.
- 40s–50s: the mortgage shrinks, the pension compounds hardest. This is when checking pension contributions against your retirement target matters most — small percentage changes here move the 55–64 figure enormously.
- 60s+: the job flips from growing the number to converting it into income — which is a planning question rather than a tracking one, and a good moment for regulated financial advice.
None of this is personal financial advice — everyone's situation differs, and for decisions like pension transfers or retirement drawdown a regulated adviser is the right port of call. But you can't steer a number you never look at.
Frequently asked questions
What is the median net worth in the UK?
Median household total wealth in Great Britain was £293,700 in the latest published ONS Wealth and Assets Survey round (April 2020 to March 2022). That includes property, private pensions, financial and physical wealth.
Are these figures per person or per household?
Per household. A couple's combined wealth counts once, under the age band of the household head — so individual comparisons, especially for single people, should be generous with themselves.
Does net worth include pensions?
In the ONS data, yes — private pension wealth is 35% of the total, the second-largest component after property. Any personal net worth figure that ignores pensions is dramatically understated for most people over 30.
Why is the average higher than the median?
Because wealth is heavily skewed: a small number of very wealthy households pull the mean far above the middle. The median — the middle household — is the fairer benchmark for comparing yourself.
How often should I check my net worth?
Monthly is plenty. Net worth moves slowly — house prices and pensions don't change meaningfully day to day — and the value is in the trend over quarters and years, not the daily wiggle.
Track your whole number, automatically
Wealthly tracks property (Land Registry valuations), all three UK pension types, vehicles, savings and debts in one net worth dashboard — and shows how it changes month to month. iOS, Android, Web. 14-day free trial.
Try Wealthly todayMore reading: Your real UK net worth: 5 assets every other app misses · DB, DC and State Pension: tracking all three · Best net worth tracker UK compared