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Rishi Sunak’s salary in 2022 totalled £1.97 million
According to the UK Prime Minister’s (PM) tax filing, which the Government published in March 2023, Sunak’s earnings between 2020 and 2022 amounted to over £4.7 million. In 2020, Sunak made nearly £1.02 million before taxes. The total grew to £1.78 million in 2021 and then again to £1.97 million in 2022, the year Sunak became prime minister — the UK’s third PM in a year.
Though his earnings as a PM and a member of Parliament (MP) factor in, Rishi Sunak’s yearly salary also includes his income from several other sources. Below, we’ll discuss these sources and take an in-depth look at the origin of Sunak’s wealth, including his vast investment portfolio.
Rishi Sunak’s salary as the PM is projected to reach £167,391 in 2023
Sunak has two main sources of income as an active politician and lawmaker: his MP salary and his salary as the country’s prime minister. As of April 2023, an MP’s annual salary was £86,584 — a 2.9% increase from £84,144 the previous year. Meanwhile, the UK Prime Minister’s salary currently stands at £75,440 per year, but the PM may decide to claim just a portion of this sum.
As per his tax filing, Sunak made £156,163 as a lawmaker in 2022 — £81,098 as an MP and £74,255 as a cabinet minister under Boris Johnson. Now that he’s the PM, Sunak could add up to £11,228 to his political salary compared to 2022. But the £167,391 he stands to earn is only a fraction of his nearly £2 million annual income, most of which is tied to his investment portfolio.
In 2022, Rishi Sunak’s investments earned him more than £1.6 million
Sunak’s 2022 tax filing reveals that he earned £1.6 million in capital gains and another £172,415 in dividend payments. According to an investigative piece by The Times, nearly all of this comes from a US-based investment fund Sunak managed until 2019, when he joined then-PM Boris Johnson’s cabinet. To avoid conflict of interest, he decided to put all his investments into “blind management” — allowing trustees to make investment decisions without his active involvement.
One of the richest politicians in the UK, Rishi Sunak was a successful banker before entering politics. He first worked as an analyst for Goldman Sachs, eventually moving on to hedge funds like TCI Fund Management and Theleme Funds. But even though most of Rishi Sunak’s initial wealth came from his banking career, experts note family ties have also played a crucial role.
Sunak’s wife owns a substantial share of a £600 million investment firm
At one point in his career, Sunak worked for Catamaran Ventures — an investment fund based in India. The firm, owned by Sunak’s father-in-law Narayana Murty, was valued at £600 million in early 2023. Although it primarily invests in early-stage Indian startups, Catamaran has also invested in global successes like the message board platform Reddit and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Akshata Murty, Sunak’s wife, held a 0.93% share of her father’s company and managed its UK arm, Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd. On top of that, Murty held a small stake in Infosys, a hugely successful Bangalore-based software company founded by her father. All this has helped make Murty a billionaire. However, as an Indian citizen, she has a non-domiciled status, meaning she doesn’t pay taxes in the UK on any of her investments abroad. According to the UK media, she paid £30,000 a year to keep this status — a revelation that sparked a public outcry in 2022.
Rishi Sunak’s tax return shows he paid £432,493 in taxes in 2022
After the news media reported his wife may have avoided paying up to £20 million in UK taxes on overseas investments, Sunak promised to make his tax returns public. He delivered on this promise, and the tax filing shows that he paid a total of £432,493 in 2022. While Rishi Sunak’s income tax totalled £120,604 (a rate of 36.6%), his capital gains tax amounted to £325,826 (a rate of 19.9%). After a £13,937 deduction for taxes paid abroad, it all added up to £432,493.
In all, Sunak paid just over £1.05 million in taxes on his £4.7 million earnings between 2020 and 2022. He paid £227,350 in 2020 and £393,217 in 2021. As for overseas taxes, he paid $6,892 (about £5,460) in the US in the 2021 calendar year; all other payments remain undisclosed.
Rishi Sunak and his wife are worth £529 million in 2023
According to The Sunday Times’ annual Rich List, Sunak and Murty’s net worth fell by 27.5% from the 2022 estimate of £730 million. This means the couple lost a staggering £500,000 every day in 2022. The Times’ analysts attribute this massive drop primarily to the plummeting value of Infosys, the Indian IT company owned by Murty’s father, which used to be worth £590 million.
The couple’s joint net worth is also a far cry from Akshata Murty’s individual net worth of $1.3 billion (about £1.03 billion) reported by Bloomberg in 2022. In September 2023, following the revelation that Catamaran UK received a government grant worth £349,976, Murty announced she would liquidate the investment firm, where she is the owner and the sole shareholder.
Because all their wealth is family-owned, Rishi Sunak’s individual net worth is unknown.
Rishi Sunak is the first prime minister wealthier than the UK monarch
When he became the prime minister in October 2022, Sunak’s family wealth was estimated at £730 million. This was more than twice the wealth of King Charles III and his queen consort, which The Guardian valued at £350 million. Sunak is now the UK’s richest prime minister ever, surpassing Edward Stanley, as well as the first PM richer than the currently serving monarch.
Even after Rishi Sunak’s family net worth took a £201 million hit in 2023, he remained one of the UK’s wealthiest politicians. At £546,000, he is also among the politicians who have received the most money in gifts, payments, and other benefits between 2019 and 2022. Other names on the list include former prime ministers Theresa May (£2.8 million) and Boris Johnson (£1.2 million), Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Cox (£2.2 million), and the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (£799,900).
Rishi Sunak Salary Breakdown: The Takeaway
With earnings totalling £1.97 million in 2022, Rishi Sunak is one of the UK’s wealthiest political figures. But the Prime Minister’s salary as a lawmaker — which stood at £156,163 in 2022 — accounts for less than 10% of his annual income. Most of his earnings come from the vast investment portfolio he amassed during his high-profile career as a banker and financial analyst.
Besides Rishi Sunak’s salary, the UK public recently showed much interest in his wife’s wealth, primarily accrued from being a shareholder in two of her father’s successful businesses. As of 2023, Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, have a combined net worth of £529 million. Despite significant financial setbacks in the last year, the two are still among the UK’s wealthiest people.
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