Average Household Savings & Wealth UK 2023

Savings are critical both in the short and long term, to help households weather emergencies and eventually fund the retirement you want. When thinking about how much to save, we often first wonder how much other people save. To get some clarification on this, we dug into data from the Office for National Statistics' Wealth and Assets Survey.

Below we'll explain how much households save each month and each year, as well as break down overall savings and wealth levels. Including by different age groups. Find out how much your peers have saved compared to you. Note, most of the data in this article reflects household savings, not individual savings. For insight into wealth per adult, see the last section.

• Average savings UK
  • What does the average person save a month?
  • How much does the average person save a year?
  • Average savings by age
• Average wealth UK
  • Average wealth by decile
  • Average wealth by age
  • Median wealth by age
  • Median wealth by region
• Best savings & investing products to help you save money

Average Household Savings UK

The average savings in the UK is £76,301 per household. This figure reflects all gross 'financial wealth' such as current and savings accounts, ISAs, shares, bonds, trusts and other formal financial assets.

However, most households have less savings than this, since the 'average' figure is skewed up by a small number of households with very high savings levels. For this reason it can be more useful to consider the 'median'—50% of household have less than the median amount saved, and 50% of households have more. The median household gross savings in the UK is £12,500 (up from £11,000 two years ago). But 25% of households have less than £2,100 saved.

Note: these are 'gross' figures which reflect assets, but do not take into account financial liabilities, like overdrafts and unpaid balances on credit cards. We discuss net financial wealth figures later in the section on savings by age.

Types of household savings

When households do have savings, how much of each type do they have? Of households with savings accounts, the median amount saved in those accounts is £5,500.

Of households with ISAs, the median amount saved is £9,200 in cash ISAs and £31,000 in stocks and shares ISAs. More people have cash ISAs than shares ISAs. Of those with fixed term bonds, the median amount is £25,000. And the figure is £40,000 for unit/investment trusts. All of these figures reflect households with each type of asset and exclude households without each type of asset.

Average savings per month UK

The typical UK household saves £180 per month—this represents the median amount saved each month. That means that 50% of households save less than £180 a month and 50% of households save more.

The average savings per month UK is £450 per household. This figure is higher than the median figure due to a small number of households with very high savings rates. For example, households in the top quintile of income save an average of £1,817 each month. In contrast, the bottom quintile of earners saves -£352 a month.

How much should I save each month?

The households saving ratio in the UK has averaged 8.7% over the past ten years. The household savings ratio is household savings as a proportion of household disposable (after-tax) income. The household saving ratio did jump up to 27.4% in Q2 2020 and 16.9% in Q3 2020, but these are not typical savings figures.

When thinking about how much you should save each month, it can be useful to know how much other households in your age group save as a proportion of their after-tax income—although it is up to you to decide how much to save given your situation. The table below shows median savings rates by age of the Household Reference Person (HRP):

Average savings per year UK

The typical UK household saves £2,160 per year—this represents the median amount saved annually, so half of households save less than £2,160 each year and half save more.

The average amount saved each year is £5,403 per household. This average figure is more than 2X higher than the median figure because a small number of households have very high savings rates. For example, households in the top quintile of income save an average of £21,798 each year. In contrast, the bottom quintile of earners saves -£4,221 a year.

Average household savings by age UK

The age group with the highest level of average savings (i.e., financial wealth) are 60 to 64 year olds, achieving net financial wealth of £116,900 on average. However, if we look at "median" figures instead of "average" figures, then the "typical" household in this age group has just £22,500 of net financial wealth. Net financial wealth reflects savings via current and savings account, stocks, bonds, shares, trusts, ISAs, and other financial assets, less financial liabilities like unpaid credit card balances.

As discussed above, "average" figures are skewed upwards by a small proportion of households with very high levels of savings.

Here are stats on how much households have saved on average in different 5-year age brackets so you can compare your savings to that of your peers. (We used to show this data in 10-year age buckets but due to a reader request in the comments section we're now breaking out the data into 5-year buckets, which are more useful. Thank you to the reader who made this request!)

FAQs

Average retirement savings UK

How much does the average retiree have saved? Those aged 65 and over have an average total wealth of £730,900—£113,600 of which is 'savings' (i.e., financial wealth like current and savings accounts, ISAs, stock, bonds, trusts, etc.) and £275,600 of which is private pensions. However, the median amount of private pension wealth is £110,200 and the median savings is £25,700 (the median figures mean that half of households have more than this and half have less). This savings chart shows average savings for different ages.

You might notice that the median total wealth does not equal the sum of the individual components (e.g. physical wealth, property wealth, etc.). This is because the sum of the medians does not equal the median of the sums. We give an example below if you want to learn more.

Average Wealth UK

The typical UK household has £302,500 in total wealth—this figure represents the median total wealth figure, meaning half of households have less than this amount and half of household have more. Total wealth is composed of four different types of wealth:

The average household wealth is £576,000. The average figure is higher than the median figure because averages are skewed upwards when there are some very large data points. In this case, some households who are very wealthy make the average figures nearly 2X the median wealth figures.

Note: as one eagle-eyed reader mentioned to us, the median total wealth figure is not the same as the figure you'd get by adding up the median figures for each wealth category.

AVERAGE wealth by decile

Upon reader request in the comments section below (thank you!) we've run the numbers to show average total wealth by decile—that means we're showing the average wealth of people in the bottom 10% of wealth, the top 10%, and the 8 deciles in between. As you can see, the bottom 10% of households (the poorest) have around £4,700 in total wealth, while the top 10% (the richest) have nearly £2.5 million on average.

And here are the details, by type of wealth:

AVERAGE wealth by age UK

Here is a chart showing average household wealth by age, across the four components of wealth: physical wealth, property wealth, private pension wealth and financial wealth (i.e., savings). Remember, average figures are higher than "typical" or median figures, as they are skewed upwards by those with high levels of wealth.

It's important to point out that the figures reflect the average wealth of the household not per person.

We've had a reader enquire about the average wealth per adult instead of per household. It's a great question. To estimate an answer, we adjusted the ONS household wealth data by the number of adults per household (which varies by age group) to arrive at approximate per-adult figures. Here are the results:

MEDIAN wealth by age UK

We've had another reader request for the median wealth by age. Thank you for the request, and here it is. Remember, the median figures are considered to be more 'typical' because they are not skewed by the small number of people with a lot of wealth; the median means half of people have less and half have more. Let's start with the median figures per household:

And here is the median wealth data by age approximated per adult—please remember these are approximations using the average number of adults per household by age from the last census. Regardless, they can provide a good indication of typical wealth patterns for the typical UK adult:

Here is a chart displaying the typical (median) wealth by age per adult. Note, this differs in two ways from the chart in the previous section. First, it displays the median not the mean. And second, the figures are per adult not per household.

Median Wealth by Region

In response to a reader query (thanks Hezzer!), we've now broken out the data according to where people live. And there are some interesting takeaways—for instance, the poorest Londoners are the poorest in the UK.

First, let's look at total household wealth by region of the UK. The 'richest' region is the South East, where the 75th percentile (that is, those with more wealth than 75% of the households) have £1,058,000 in total wealth. This is greater than in London, where those in the 75th percentile of wealth have £902,400. The East of England ranks third for this metric, with £864,700 of total wealth.

How about people at the lower end of the wealth spectrum? Comparing those at the 25th percentile of wealth (that is, those with more than the bottom 25% and less than the top 75%), Londoners have the least—£32,200 of total wealth.

And how is a household's wealth allocated, depending on where they live? Not surprisingly, given the high cost of property in the capital, the biggest contributor to household wealth for Londoners is property (49% of total household wealth on average). But for the rest of the UK, private pensions are the bulk of a household's wealth.

Any questions about any of this data, feel free to leave a comment below or email us.

Median Example

We've had a few readers reach out asking why the total wealth figures don't equal the sum of the individual wealth components (e.g. financial wealth, physical wealth, etc.).

For the "mean" figures the small discrepancy between total and sum of the categories would be due to rounding.

But for the "median" figures, where there is a big difference between the total and the sum of the categories, this is because in math the sum of the medians does not equal the median of the sums. Here's an example:

The median for each type of wealth is 3. So the sum of the medians would be 12. But the total wealth figures per person are 12, 11 and 9—so the median of total wealth is actually 11 (not 12, which is the sum of the medians).

Best Savings & Investing Products

After reading all of this, you may be keen to boost your savings. Clearly, one way to do this is by cutting back on unnecessary spending—but a lot of people don't really have much frivolous spending. Or even if you do, sometimes we need a bit of that! So what else can you do?

You can look to financial products to see if there are new or better tools on the market compared to what you're using now. For instance, this can mean opening up a new savings account or swapping your savings into a higher-yielding account.

Some people may choose to start investing, but care needs to be taken here and investments can go up and down in value, so you could get back less than you put in. But companies like Hargreaves Lansdown can provide advise regarding which investments may be suitable through their team of financial advisors.