Ownership of UK quoted shares: 2024

• The total value of shares held in quoted UK-domiciled companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) was £2.54 trillion at the end of 2024.

• Overseas investors continued to increase their holdings, with the proportion of UK shares owned by the rest of the world reaching a record high of 58.8% in 2024, up from 57.7% in 2022.

• UK-resident individuals held 11.6% of quoted shares, which is an increase of 0.8 percentage points from 2022; these holdings were valued at £295.0 billion – a record-high value.

• Banks expanded their holdings to a record 3.6%, which is an increase of 0.2 percentage points compared with 2022; the previous record was 3.5% in 2008, after which the level fell before starting to increase again from 2016 onwards.

• The UK government continued to reduce its investment in UK banks following the 2008 financial crisis; public sector holdings of UK quoted shares stood at 0.2% at the end of 2024; these holdings were valued at £4.7 billion, a decrease of 0.4 percentage points compared with 2022 when the value of holdings were £13.5 billion.

• The long-standing trend of overseas investors increasing their share of UK quoted equities continued, with a record high 58.8% held by overseas beneficiaries in 2024, up from 57.7% in 2022; beneficiaries in the United States held £693.9 billion in 2024, which is the largest proportion of UK quoted shares of any country outside the UK and is over half the estimated £1 trillion of UK quoted shares that are owned domestically.

Measuring the data

This biennial bulletin provides estimates of holdings of ordinary shares in UK domiciled quoted companies by sector of beneficial ownership. Analysis in this bulletin only includes companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) whose country of incorporation is listed as UK according to the LSE.

Share ownership is measured using data from Euroclear (CREST), which is the electronic settlement system for equity share trading and further analysis of share registers. The majority of shares, in terms of value, are held in multiple-ownership pooled accounts (51.9% at the end of 2024). The shares have been allocated to individual beneficial owners using further analysis of share registers. To identify an estimate of the true beneficiary of these pooled accounts, a sample of the accounts from company share registers was analysed by Orient Capital.

The CREST dataset does not include shares held in paper form. The dataset that was used to analyse the difference between paper and electronic shares came from the LSE. These paper shares have been apportioned to the different beneficial owners based on this analysis, as described in our Ownership of UK quoted shares quality and methodology information (QMI).

Strengths and limitations

This bulletin is used to provide an estimate to populate the financial accounts and derive an asset breakdown for the transaction line "quoted shares" and "unquoted shares" holdings in these accounts. The data are also used to assign dividend receipts to sectors. This bulletin is used by external users that take an interest in who owns shares in UK-listed companies. Our data provide this benchmark for beneficial owners of UK quoted shares every two years.

Our dataset, provided by Euroclear (CREST), consists of companies making up roughly 80% of the value of UK shares on the LSE. This provides a realistic estimation of the proportions of ownership of shares among sectors.

Care should be taken when making comparisons between years before 2010. From 1998, the share ownership survey switched to using data from the CREST system, which led to a discontinuity in the analysis. The greatest impact was that some companies previously classified as "unit trusts" and "investment trusts" were then classified as "other financial institutions" (see Section 4: Glossary). As such, long-term trends are now harder to identify and follow. Additionally, the analysis of pooled nominee accounts was not updated between 1998 and 2008, causing large variations in some beneficial owners' proportions. For these years, the 1997 analysis was carried forward to compile the results.

The methodological improvements that were made in the 2012 survey particularly affected other financial institutions. While the 2010 data were recalculated as part of the 2012 survey to make them more comparable, the fall in ownership by other financial institutions data between 2010 and 2012 may in part be the result of changes in methodology.

Share ownership analysis has not been carried out at uniform intervals, so care should be taken when interpreting time series charts and tables in this release.

As seen in Table 1 of our accompanying dataset, a large proportion of the shares in the UK market is held in mutual fund accounts before being divided among the beneficial owners. As a result, the beneficial owners of shares are not necessarily the same as the registered owners.

Beneficial owner

The true, underlying owner of the share who receives the benefits of holding the security, such as the income through dividends. A substantial portion of overseas ownership is routed through financial centres, making the underlying origin of some investments difficult to identify.

Multiple-ownership pooled nominee accounts

An entry on the share register representing two or more beneficial owners from at least two different sectors. The beneficial owners must be established through the Companies Act 2006 Section 793 request, because the electronic register does not give a complete breakdown of beneficial ownership.

Other financial institutions

An entity whose principal activity is the production of financial services. For the purposes of this release, "other financial institutions" refers to other financial intermediaries (except insurance corporations and pension funds), financial auxiliaries, captive financial institutions, and money lenders.

Quoted shares

Shares that are quoted on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), and that can be openly traded between investors.

UK-domiciled companies

Companies that the LSE has identified as UK incorporated.