Billionaire Britain: UK home to more than 100 billionaires

The UK has more billionaires per head of population than anywhere else in the world, according to the new Sunday Times Rich List for 2014.

In the list that will be published next Sunday, it found that the number of billionaires in Britain had topped 100 for the first time ever.

In total, the list discovered that there were 104 billionaires based in the UK, a rise of 26 when compared with The Sunday Times’s 2013 list.

Of the 104 billionaires, London is a home to 72 of them – the highest than any other city in the world.

Explaining why London was so attractive to the super rich the Rich List author Phillip Beresford said: “London is the financial centre of the world, it straddles time zones so people can get the best financial advice trade, the tax regime is good and they feel safe here.”

Despite the financial crisis, London seems to be thriving and its reputation as a centre of business, finance and culture has attracted a number of wealthy foreign business people.

Of the lists’ top ten richest billionaires nine of them were not originally from the UK.

This group includes Britain’s new richest men, the Hinduja brothers, whose Hinduja Group conglomerate makes them worth a whopping 11.9bn, as well as last year’s richest man Russian business magnate Alisher Usmanov and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.

Beresford did say that although the top places on the list were dominated by foreign businessmen, during their research the rich list authors had seen a lot more new British born entrepreneurs becoming billionaires.

He said: “There are new British billionaires coming on and that is important because they are the ones that create the jobs for all of us.”

Adding: “We want to encourage people like this to get richer, because it makes us richer by giving us jobs.”

The Duke of Westminster who has a property portfolio of around £8.5billion was the highest ranking Brit on the list, followed by SportsDirect owner Mike Ashley whose worth grew to £3.7bn over the last year and Virgin entrepreneur Richard Branson who with his is currently the owner of a business worth 3.6bn.

This year seems to have been a good year for Britain’s billionaires, with their combined worth rising from the £245 bn it was measured at last year to a staggering £301bn this year.

To put that combined total into perspective, Ireland’s total GDP is around £125 billion.

Britain's 25 richest

Sri and Gopi Hinduja, £11.9bn

Alisher Usmanov, £10.65bn

Lakshmi Mittal and family, £10.25bn

Len Blavatnik, £10bn

Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli, £9.75bn

John Fredriksen and family, £9.25bn

David and Simon Reuben, £9bn

Kirsten and Jorn Rausing, £8.8bn

Roman Abramovich, £8.52bn

The Duke of Westminster, £8.5bn

Galen, Hilary and George Weston and family, £7.3bn

Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken and Michel de Carvalho, £6.36bn

Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber and family, £6.16bn

Carrie and Francois Perrodo and family, £6.14bn

German Khan, £6.08bn,

Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, £6bn

Hans Rausing and family £5.9bn

Nicky Oppenheimer and family, £4.57bn

Earl Cadogan and family, £4.2bn

Joseph Lau and family, £4.03bn

Sir Philip and Lady Green £3.88bn

Denis O'Brien, £3.85bn

Mike Ashley, £3.75bn

Sir Richard Branson and family, £3.6bn

Idan Ofer, £3.43bn