Map shows the richest areas of Great Britain - and how much wealth people there have

A map showing the distribution of wealth across Britain shows Surrey and Sussex are the wealthiest areas, with residents of the counties having a median wealth of £263,200 per person.

The data, compiled by the Office for National Statistics, was collected over a period of two years and reveals huge disparities between wealth across the country.

The area of Inner London East is the least wealthy, with median wealth of £26,400 per person, compared to the neighbouring outer south of the capital where people are on average ten times more wealthy.

The report highlighted London as the least balanced region, with "high inequality in individual wealth of respondents living in this area".

The Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) is a two-yearly survey that measures the wellbeing of UK households and individuals in terms of their assets, debts and plans for retirement.

The survey analysed responses from data from 31,829 Britons aged 16 years or over and not in full-time education.

Researchers used both mean and median as measures of average wealth. Mean wealth is the total wealth of all individuals divided by the number of individuals - the average, and median wealth is that of the middle person, if everyone was sorted from poorest to richest.

The overall median total wealth for individuals in Britain was estimated to be £125,000 between April 2018 and March 2020.

The report found that median individual wealth was £157,000 higher in the South East than the North East of England, and that this regional disparity has increased over time. It also found that the wealthiest 10% of the population are estimated to hold around half of all wealth, primarily in the form of private pensions and property.

Krishan Shah of the Resolution Foundation think tank that analyses data and looks to address disparities between wealth in the UK said: "Wealth increased by £500 billion in the two years prior to the pandemic to reach a record £15.2 trillion – and is likely to have defied the crisis and continued growing since.

"With wealth inequality remaining high and unchanged, this means that Britain's huge and absolute gaps in wealth have continued to grow.

"With limited financial resources to protect them from economic shocks, the poorest households were undoubtedly in the worst position heading into the pandemic. Policymakers need to help those worst-affected build financial resilience ahead of future shocks."

The research showed that average individual wealth increases with age, peaking in the 60-to-64 age group at a level nine times as high as the 30-to-34 age group, before falling in older age groups as people use their wealth to support life in retirement.

When holding other factors constant, wealth was estimated to be £101,000 lower for women than men overall.

It was estimated to be £65,000 lower for people with a longstanding illness or disability than those without, and also £65,000 lower for those identifying as bisexual compared with those identifying as heterosexual.

People from ethnic backgrounds also had less wealth overall than those identifying as white British.