Rich List 2024: Sunday Times journalist Helen Davies reveals behind-the-scenes secrets

Virgin Radio

19 May 2024, 13:09

Every April, The Sunday Times releases a Rich List of the 1,000 wealthiest people or families resident in the UK. 

This year, one of the biggest findings was that Rishi Sunak had overtaken King Charles, with the Prime Minister’s wealth soaring by more than £120million over the past year to a total of £65million. 

The list features big celebrities like Elton John and David Beckham but also some more self-made entrepreneurs, including a family in Sheffield who made their wealth from a project during the pandemic.

------------------------------------

DON'T MISS:

Surprising star beats Tom Holland and Cillian Murphy as UK and Ireland’s sexiest man for a second time

Sir Paul McCartney named UK’s first billionaire musician - who else made The Sunday Times Rich List 2024?

Netflix viewers are desperate for a second series of hit Irish thriller Bodkin

------------------------------------

Helen Davies, the editor of The Sunday Times Rich List, joined Angela Scranlon on Virgin Radio UK this morning to discuss what they had discovered from the list this year and how they got their data. 

Speaking about the project, Helen said, “It's a really interesting portrait of Britain. When it first launched, it would have been dominated by a lot of landed gentry, kind of aristocrats. Now, there are many, many more self-made entrepreneurs.”

She added: “[This year], the number of billionaires has fallen, and it's a record fall, and it's the greatest fall we've had in that history.”

When asked why this was the case, Helen said there were several reasons why the super-rich were leaving Britain. 

She explained: “There is still huge wealth in the list. There's still huge wealth overall in the country, but what we are concerned about is that we want to make sure that people aren't leaving for the wrong reasons. So that's kind of what we've queried.

“Why are the super-rich leaving Britain? Where are they going? And why? And some of the answers they've been given were safety, you know, they feel at risk in our capital city. Some even quoted high house prices like the rest of us.”

Putting the list together is a huge project that practically takes all year and when Angela asked how they do it, Helen said the paper had their methods. 

She explained: “We’re not going to divulge all our secrets, but we do have a detailed methodology. We source things like art property and shipping yachts. We speak to specialists to get valuations on these people and their collections. 

“It also comes down to reading the news. We’ll read the business pages and track things that most people will miss in the normal run of news.”

She continued: “My colleague, Robert Watts, will bury himself for months and months in the paperwork and will look at all the published accounts. That starts from about December until first end of April, constantly looking, constantly evaluating, and then ranking at the very last minute. 

“We don't know the full list until a couple of weeks before it comes out. It's a big, big project.”

You can read the full Rich List in this week’s Sunday Times on thetimes.co.uk. Angela Scanlon hosts weekend breakfast on Virgin Radio.