King as rich as Sunak and wife as Charles’s personal wealth jumps £30m to £640m

The King’s personal wealth has jumped by £30 million to £640 million in the last year, making him as rich as former prime minister Rishi Sunak and wife Akshata Murphy, according to The Sunday Times Rich List.

Charles, who acceded to the throne in 2022, ranks joint 238th in the list of the UK’s 350 wealthiest people and families, up 20 places from 258th in 2024.

Calculations by the newspaper’s Rich List suggest the monarch is £140 million richer than David and Victoria Beckham, who are said to be worth £500 million, with former England captain Beckham being Britain’s richest sports star.

Investment portfolio

The 76-year-old monarch, who has faced a challenging past year as he continues to undergo treatment for cancer, has benefited from the investment portfolio he inherited from his late mother for the bulk of his wealth, the newspaper said.

His private estates Sandringham in Norfolk and Balmoral in Aberdeenshire, which belonged to the Queen, are part of his financial fortune.

Only personal assets are included by The Sunday Times when assessing the sovereign’s wealth.

This does not include the Crown Estate, which saw soaring profits thanks to wind farm deals, the Duchy of Lancaster estate, nor the Crown Jewels which are held in trust by the King for the nation.

The late Queen’s wealth was said to be £370 million in 2022, with Charles now estimated to be worth £270 million more than his mother, rising from £610 million to £640 million in 2025.

Stanford University

The personal wealth of Mr Sunak and Ms Murty dropped £11 million from £651 million to £640 million.

Since leaving Downing Street, the former prime minister has taken a part-time role at Stanford University and signed up to the Washington Speakers Bureau, and the couple launched a charity to tackle numeracy problems in the UK.

Ms Murty has a stake in Infosys, the Indian IT giant co-founded by her billionaire father.

As the Prince of Wales, Charles received a private income of around £23 million a year from the Duchy of Cornwall.

It was used in part for non-official expenditure for himself and his family and for the official cost of personal staff, his office and official residences.

The news outlet’s annual rich list was released on Friday, and will be included in a 76-page special edition of its Sunday magazine.

It reveals the wealth of the 350 richest individuals and families in the UK, based on identifiable wealth, including land, property, other assets such as art and racehorses, or significant shares in publicly quoted companies.

The 37th list registers the third consecutive drop and the biggest fall in the number of UK billionaires in its history.

The annual list was once again topped by the Hinduja family, who are worth more than £35 billion.

The number of billionaires slid to 156 this year from 165 in 2024, representing the sharpest decline in the Sunday Times Rich List’s 37-year-history.

“Our billionaire count is down and the combined wealth of those who feature in our research is falling,” said Robert Watts, compiler of the Rich List.

“We are also finding fewer of the world’s super rich are coming to live in the UK.”

He said he was also “struck by the strength of criticism for Rachel Reeves’s Treasury” when speaking to wealthy individuals for the publication.

Mr Watts said: “We expected the abolition of non-dom status would anger affluent people from overseas.

“But homegrown young tech entrepreneurs and those running centuries-old family firms are also warning of serious consequences to a range of tax changes unveiled in last October’s budget.”

The Labour Government abolished the non-dom tax status in April, which is where UK residents whose permanent home or domicile for tax purposes is outside the UK.

Last year, former Conservative chancellor Jeremy Hunt revealed plans to scrap the tax status before successor Rachel Reeves sped up the process.