In short
Rubbish Talk rates the Independent's claim that UK millionaires have hit a "lowest since 2008" low a 4/10 because the headline repeats an advocacy think tank's own modelled estimate as flat fact, without flagging that it is a Pareto-distribution extrapolation, not a measured count, from a group actively lobbying for tax cuts.
The Verdict
Selective, not dishonest. The 442,000 figure and the "since 2008" comparison are lifted straight from the Adam Smith Institute's own press release, so the number itself checks out. But the headline strips away the fact this is an estimate built from a statistical model, produced by a group with an explicit policy ask, and the article body itself later undercuts one of the report's central claims, which the headline doesn't hint at.
What actually happened
The Adam Smith Institute (ASI), a right-leaning think tank, updated its "Millionaire Tracker" and estimated UK sterling millionaires fell to 442,000 in 2025, the lowest since the 2008 financial crisis and down 7% on 2024. The tracker isn't a census; it applies a Pareto distribution to ONS household net-worth data to estimate how many people sit above £1m, adjusted for inflation and exchange rates.
Key facts
- Estimated millionaires: 442,000 in 2025, down 7% from 2024, per ASI tracker.
- The latest records on the Millionaire Tracker show that there were 442,000 sterling millionaires in Britain, down by 7% since 2024.
- Peak was just 442,000 adults in the UK held net assets of £1million or more in 2025, a collapse from the peak of 1.07 million people in 2021.
- The model relies on total UK household net worth in the ONS National Accounts, which stood at about £10.75 trillion in 2024, with a Pareto distribution applied to estimate how many sit above the £1 million threshold.
- The article's own reporting notes the ASI's HNWI-exodus claim "has not been documented in HMRC data," per the supplied text.
- IHT receipts, which ASI wants abolished, were £7.2bn in 2023-24 (under 1% of government revenue) rising to a forecast £14.5bn by 2030/31, per the article.
What to watch for
Watch whether HMRC or ONS releases actual (not modelled) data on high-net-worth departures, since that's the load-bearing claim the ASI itself admits is asserted rather than proven. Also watch how the "constant-price" definition (individual net worth including pensions) gets flattened into simpler "millionaire" language in follow-up coverage, and whether other outlets note the think tank's policy stake in the story.
