Every year The Sunday Times puts together its Rich List – a carefully calculated (read: increasingly guesstimated) account of who’s made what in the last year and, when placed alongside running totals and expenses, who’s got more money than who.
It’s an annual pry into the kind of numbers that the rich and famous would like to keep secret and for music fans it’s increasingly interesting as a metric as to who’s big-mouthed power play, festival fronting and chart dominance is actually paying off for real.
The stats are out now, so – in advance of its glossy reveal in print this Sunday – how are the who’s who of music doing in the wider world of wealth?
And the top music celebrity with the biggest fortune in 2025 is…
Clive Calder…?
Yup, the Zomba and Jive Records founder and entrepreneur, who made the bulk of his cash in the '90s, signing, carefully crafting and promoting the careers of Britney Spears, NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys among others is still coining it in, being the top musical Brit with a wad that’s now £3 billion large.
Looks like that cash will never stop…
Despite an increasingly low profile, Calder increased his wealth this year by £250m through smart investments outside of music and thus has moved up this particular chart from number 63 to 56.
Calder began his career back in the 70s, founding Zomba in South Africa as a management company for artists and producers before founding his own label, Jive Records in 1981 and profiting from the likes of Billy Ocean, Def Leppard, Elvis Costello and The Boomtown Rats.
Calder would go on to found Silvertone records – ensnaring the early Stone Roses before the band and label’s famous fall-out – before selling the lot in 2002 for $2.74 billion to the German media group Bertelsmann.
(Worth interjecting at this point that technically the real highest ‘music’ earner on the chart is up at number three… Sir Leonard Blavatnik is worth even more at £25.725 billion and has a considerable stake in Warner Music Group and also owns the music service Deezer. But… Well… Anyway… Onwards…)
With a little help from my… wife?
So where are the REAL stars? From number 56 we have to dive as low as number 151 for our next (and first?) true music icon. And it’s…
Who else but Sir Paul McCartney?
Yes, Macca will no doubt have both thumbs aloft at this point as he’s made £25 million in the last year, moving up the charts from number 165 last year with a total fortune now in excess of £1 billion. (£1.025 billion if you must know).
McCartney’s legacy needs no introduction of course but it’s worth bearing in mind that The Sunday Times’ figures helpfully include the input of both sides of a couple’s potential purchasing power, meaning that the not inconsiderable wealth of his wife, Nancy Shevell, and her holdings in her broader family’s Shevell Group of Companies have helped Macca's numbers along nicely too.
Similarly rising up the chart and coming ‘second’ in music (though 283rd overall) is Sir Elton John. John moves up to that position from 291st last year, with an increase in wealth of £5 million, for a total of £475 million.
John has been active again this year, alongside Brandi Carlile for a new album, Who Believes In Angels and a gig at The London Palladium. He also played a charity gig earlier this month at San Diego's Petco Park despite officially retiring from touring with the end of his 330-date Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in 2023.
With his Lockdown Sessions album and soundtrack to his own Never Too Late Disney+ documentary, John continues to create and earn both plaudits and cash.
Let’s spend the cash together…
Who’s next? Yes, it’s another famous couple sliding up to number 295, up from last year’s number 315. It seems that – as per every Sunday Times Rich List – the duo of Sir Mick Jagger and bandmate Keith Richards have been lumped in together, with The Times’ stats having them both make £25 million in the last year and them both having identical fortunes of £440 million.
While it’s easy to imagine this song-writing pairing making the same money, it's hard to imagine that – over 60 years – they’ve spent and invested it identically too? Hard to imagine that this particular nagging couple having a joint account…
And finally in that top 350… (Why is it 350?… We don’t make the rules…) It’s…
Ed Sheeran is at number 333 with a £370 million fortune.
Sheeran’s presence is, in fact, a new entry this year, having dipped out of the 2024 chart due to inactivity, but he's back in the limelight with new singles and a new album, Play, due later this year. Plus, the eventual release of £20 million in royalties tied up in his Shape of You plagiarism case – Sheeran was found not guilty – likely helped too.
There are, of course, a few famous musical names missing here, For those outside of The Sunday Times’s reported 350 top ranking we have to dip into their side categories, most specifically their top list of big earners who are under 40 years old.
The new Top 40 (under 40)…
Here – in ascending order of wealth – we find…
Dua Lipa with £115 million in the bank and a placing of 34th in that 40.
Lipa only ever goes from strength to strength moving from UK niche breakout to global success with her third album Radical Optimism, an appearance in the blockbusting Barbie movie and multiple big brand buy-ins from the likes of Puma, Porsche, American Express, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, and Chanel.
You want hip folks to pick up your stuff? Who ya gonna call?
Radical Optimism was her first album to debut at number one in the UK and gained four Brit awards nominations but took home none. However, at 29 years of age she can lay claim to being the youngest person on the 40.
Meanwhile, riding higher at number 26… It’s…
Adele. Obviously.
Yes. Very much the low-profile winner, Adele continues to coin it in without particularly lifting a finger from year to year. Her run of shows in Munich and her troublesome Las Vegas residency actually ended at the at the end of last year with Adele’s only 2025 surfacing being the resurfacing of her debut single, Hometown Glory, which re-entered the charts almost 18 years after its initial release following another inexplicable resurgence on TikTok.
Far more visible (though similarly now taking a well-deserved break) is Harry Styles, at number 22 in the 40 with a wealth of £225 million. Never forget that Styles’ global Love On Tour tour, which finally wrapped up in Italy in 2022, actually ran for just two months short of two entire years, featuring 169 shows across five continents.
The tour was so long that its setlist changed as the show progressed in order to promote both his album Fine Line (from 2019) AND its sequel Harry’s House (2022) which was released while the tour was already in progress.
Styles’ work ethic and talent is perhaps most evident in that his earnings are close to ten times as much as those of his sadly departed and identically platformed One Direction bandmate Liam Payne, who died earlier this year leaving a not inconsiderable £25 million.
But top of the pile is (of course) Ed Sheeran alongside his £370 million. Sheeran’s last single, Azizam, went to number three in the UK and is still riding high with its follow-up Old Phone, currently a new entry at number 17 with over five million views on YouTube in just seven days…
His eighth studio album, Play, will be released on 12 September, and seems certain for more success.
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