For all the attention they attract, the ultra-wealthy remain a small and well-defined group. Altrata's World Ultra Wealth Report 2025 counts 510,810 individuals worldwide with a net worth above $30 million, and projects the population will grow to roughly 676,970 by 2030. Below them sits a far larger base: UBS counts about 60 million dollar millionaires, a number that rose by 680,000 in 2024 alone and is forecast to grow by more than five million by 2029.
The shape of this population matters because it determines who needs advice, where, and in what language. Three features stand out.
Wealth is concentrating, and ageing
Older households now control a markedly larger share of total wealth than they did even a few years ago, holding around 61% of national wealth in the United States by 2023, up from 54% in 2020. That concentration is what makes the coming wealth transfer so large, and it places a premium on planning that crosses generations rather than serving one at a time.
The family office has gone mainstream
The vehicle of choice for managing significant wealth, the single family office, has proliferated. Deloitte estimates there are now around 2,020 single family offices in Europe, behind North America and Asia Pacific, within a global population that has expanded rapidly and is projected to keep growing through 2030.
| Region | Estimated single family offices |
|---|---|
| North America | 3,180 |
| Asia Pacific | 2,290 |
| Europe | 2,020 |
Deloitte, Family Office Insights Series
Europe's distinct profile
Europe's ultra-wealthy landscape has features that set it apart. Women are the principals of around 20% of European family offices, the highest proportion of any region. And families here are unusually active in reviewing strategy: roughly two-thirds of European family offices plan changes to their strategic asset allocation in the coming year. This is not a population that sets a portfolio and forgets it.
Understanding the ultra-wealthy is not about the size of the number. It is about the shape of it: who holds the wealth, who will inherit it, and what they expect.
What the map implies for advisers
A population that is growing, ageing at the top, concentrated in family-office structures and active in reviewing strategy has clear implications. It rewards advisers who can serve a family across generations rather than a single principal; who can engage with sophisticated, in-house teams as peers; and who can revisit a strategy as circumstances shift without rebuilding the analysis from scratch each time.
The everyday millionaire, and the gap above
One of the more striking findings in the recent data is the rise of what UBS calls the everyday millionaire: individuals with between $1 million and $5 million in investable assets. This group now holds around $107 trillion in wealth, approaching the roughly $119 trillion held by those with more than $5 million. The middle of the wealth pyramid has thickened, and with it the population of families who need structured advice but have historically been served by tools built for either retail investors or vast institutions.
That gap is an opportunity. The methodology that a seasoned adviser brings to a $100 million family is, in its essentials, the same one a $20 million family needs: a clear policy, comparable scenarios, an honest view of risk and liquidity, and a record that holds up. What has been missing is a way to deliver it without three days of manual work per engagement. Remove that constraint and the same quality of advice reaches many more families.
Where growth is fastest
Geographically, the centre of gravity continues to shift. The United States still accounts for close to 40% of the world's millionaires and adds more than a thousand every day, but Asia is closing the gap quickly, and mainland China alone added hundreds of new millionaires a day in 2024. For a European adviser, the implication is not to chase those markets but to recognise that wealth, and the families who hold it, are increasingly global, mobile and cross-border, which only raises the value of a process that travels and a record that is portable.
The ultra-wealthy are often described as hard to reach. The data suggests the harder task is to stay relevant to them: to grow with a family as it changes, and to remain the trusted voice as wealth, and the people who hold it, pass from one generation to the next.
Sources: Altrata World Ultra Wealth Report 2025; UBS Global Wealth Report 2025; Deloitte Family Office Insights Series. Figures are estimates and projections.