Are you wealthy for your age? Ask the UK data
Most people judge their wealth against a headline figure that was never about them. The national average is pulled a long way up by a small number of very rich households, and even the median says nothing about a 28-year-old with a mortgage and a starter pension, who is doing fine by any fair reading of the survey. Put in your age band and what you own and you'll see the share of UK adults your age who hold less than you. This calculator on Find The Norm uses ONS Wealth and Assets Survey Round 8 (2020-2022) and FCA Financial Lives Survey 2024 to rank your total wealth against UK adults in your age cohort.
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Your income ranked against earners your age.
Median household wealth by age band, from ONS WAS Round 8
The ONS Wealth and Assets Survey adds up four things for every household it interviews: net property, private pensions, net financial wealth and physical possessions. Median total wealth climbs steeply through working life, peaks where the household head is 65 to 74 and falls back after 75. The ONS publishes these medians by the age of the household head, for households in Great Britain, and doesn't publish percentile cut-offs for each age band. Look at the spread before you look at the median. Across all households the middle half runs from £70,500 to £662,100, and much of that gap comes down to whether the household owns its home. If you want a cash-only comparison, average savings by age strips property and pensions out.
| Age of household head | Median household total wealth |
|---|---|
| 16 to 24 | £15,200 |
| 25 to 34 | £109,800 |
| 35 to 44 | £209,600 |
| 45 to 54 | £301,900 |
| 55 to 64 | £496,500 |
| 65 to 74 | £502,500 |
| 75 and over | £373,100 |
Why the average is the wrong number to compare yourself with
Mean total household wealth in Great Britain works out at about £503,000 while the median is £293,700, and the £209,000 or so between them is what concentration at the top looks like once you average it out. The wealthiest 10% of households held about 41% of the total in April 2020 to March 2022, and the bottom 50% held 10%, the same share as the richest 1%. A Gini coefficient of 0.59 makes UK wealth far more unequal than UK income, so a small group of very large fortunes lifts the mean well clear of anything a typical household owns. Compare yourself with the median for your age band and ignore the mean, which describes the arithmetic rather than any real household. The net worth statistics page sets the UK figures against the US and other countries.
What counts as total wealth in the ONS data?
Total wealth in the ONS survey is the sum of four parts: net property wealth, which is property owned minus mortgages and secured loans; private pension wealth, including defined benefit, defined contribution and SIPPs; net financial wealth, meaning savings and investments minus unsecured debts such as credit cards and personal loans; and physical wealth, meaning contents, vehicles and valuables. Property is 40% of the national total and pensions 35%, with financial wealth at 14% and physical at 10%. The State Pension isn't in there at all. Pensions are the part people leave out, because a defined benefit scheme doesn't come with an obvious pot value, and leaving it out will put you a long way below where the survey would actually place you. Dig out your latest statement before you type a number in.
Owners and renters are two different distributions
Households with a mortgage had a median of £404,700 in the ONS survey, about ten times the £40,800 of households who rent, and outright owners sat at £647,400. The ONS doesn't split that by age band, so the gap for any one age group is an estimate. Equity does part of it, and so does the fact that higher earners are the ones who get to buy in the first place, and then UK house prices rose about 56% between January 2014 and January 2024 and did the rest. So the median for your age band is really two humps averaged into one number, and whether you own is the single input that moves your percentile most. Run your UK salary percentile next to this one, because a high income with a low wealth rank usually just means you haven't bought yet.
Frequently asked questions
Mean total household wealth in Great Britain works out at about £503,000 and the median is £293,700 (ONS, April 2020 to March 2022). Half of households hold less than the median and half hold more, so that's the figure to compare yourself with. The gap of roughly £209,000 exists because the richest 10% of households hold about 41% of all wealth while the bottom 50% hold 10%, and a Gini coefficient of 0.59 confirms how lopsided that is.
The ONS Wealth and Assets Survey (2020-2022) puts median household wealth at £109,800 where the household head is 25 to 34, and that's a household figure, so a couple's pensions and home equity are counted together. Owning a home moves you up fast, because equity counts even when the property is 90% mortgaged. Renting households of all ages had a median of just £40,800, which is the fairer yardstick for a 30-year-old who rents.
Yes. Private pensions made up 35% of household wealth in the 2020 to 2022 round, second only to property at 40%. The ONS turns defined benefit entitlements into a capital value, so a final salary pension can be a household's biggest asset. Auto-enrolment since 2012 has taken participation to 90% of eligible employees in 2025. The State Pension is left out entirely. Check your annual statement, or the Pension Tracing Service, before you leave the field blank.
Net property wealth was 40% of household wealth in 2020 to 2022, up from 36% in 2018 to 2020, partly because the ONS changed its pension method. The UK House Price Index rose from £77,950 in January 2000 to £265,252 in October 2024, roughly 240%. Tight supply holds prices up, and a main home pays no capital gains tax. The Resolution Foundation has found parental wealth strongly shapes whether under-35s own, so the gap passes down through families.
About one in ten UK adults have no cash savings at all according to the FCA Financial Lives Survey 2024, and another 21% have less than £1,000 to fall back on. The FCA counts 13.1 million adults (24%) as having low financial resilience, meaning a broken boiler or a missed pay cheque is hard to absorb. Those people barely register in a mean dominated by the top.
US median family net worth was $192,900 in the Federal Reserve's 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, against a Great Britain median of £293,700 in ONS WAS 2020-2022. The British figure looks higher partly because the ONS counts capitalised pension wealth and partly because more British wealth sits in homes. US households also carry medical costs that British households don't.
Median household wealth is £209,600 where the household head is 35 to 44, on the ONS 2020 to 2022 figures. For a homeowner most of that is equity. A renter should compare savings plus pension with other renters, and renting households of all ages had a median of £40,800, so a renter at 40 holding about that much across savings and pension is roughly typical. Auto-enrolment since 2012 has helped build those pension pots.
Probably. Round 8 covers April 2020 to March 2022, when pandemic savings peaked, and much of that cushion went in the 2022 to 2024 cost of living squeeze. House prices dipped in 2023, and higher interest rates cut the capitalised value of defined benefit pensions. The pandemic switch in interview mode left too many outright owners in the sample, and in June 2025 the survey's accredited status was suspended over quality concerns. Round 9 is provisionally due in 2026.
- Office for National Statistics. Wealth and Assets Survey Round 8, April 2020 to March 2022. Total Wealth in Great Britain. ons.gov.uk. OGL v3 licence.
- Financial Conduct Authority. Financial Lives Survey 2024. fca.org.uk/data/financial-lives-survey.
- Resolution Foundation. Wealth inequality analyses, 2023-2024. resolutionfoundation.org.