Source: Common Wealth analysis of LSEG and FAME data.

Note: Network data is incomplete before 2010. No bus data prior to 2007. Prices are inflation adjusted, using the GDP deflator.

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Source: Common Wealth analysis of LSEG and Companies House statements.

Note: Power Assets Holdings Limited, CK Infrastructure Holdings Limited, are related parties but not wholly owned subsidiaries of CK Hutchison Holdings (the CK Hutchison Group). CK Hutchison Holdings owns 75.67% of CK Infrastructure Holdings Limited. CK Infrastructure Holdings owns 36.01% of Power Assets Holdings.

Source: Common Wealth analysis of World Inequality Database.

Note: By the 1970s, the UK had the highest public wealth relative to national income in the G7. This was true both in gross terms and net of public debt. The last 45 years have seen a dramatic deterioration of this public wealth. First came the wave of fire sales of public assets throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. After 2007, public debt mushroomed with the bank bailouts following the Global Financial Crisis and the subsequent decade of stagnation, which saw net public wealth relative to national income continuing to fall despite, gross modest growth of public wealth. But the decline in net public wealth relative to national income between 2007 and 2019 was less than half as great as the decline witnessed between 1981 and 1996. That earlier period saw gross public wealth decline at a pace only surpassed by post-Soviet countries undergoing shock therapy. As of 2023, the UK had the second lowest gross public wealth relative to national income of any OECD member state bar Türkiye, sitting below Chile.

Net public wealth is the total value of assets (cash, housing, bonds, equities, etc.) owned by the general government sector (central government, state government, local government and social security funds), minus its debts. 

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