Australia is the seventh richest nation in the world, with data from a new report revealing exactly what Aussies need to earn to be considered part of our country’s exclusive club of the most elite earners.
According to Knight Frank’s The Wealth Report 2024, the threshold for Aussies has fallen to US$4.673m (A$6.9m) from US$5.5m ($8.14m) in 2023.
However, the entry point to the top 1% is still significantly more than the US$2.8 million (A$4.1m) required in 2021.
And to become an ‘ultra-high net worth individual’ (UHNWI), you need to be worth more than $46 million.
The report found that in Australia, the number of UHNWIs rose by 2.9% over the year to reach 15,347 people and is expected to rise a further 27% by 2028 to 19,491 people.
So, owning a property in one of our richest streets would easily put you at the top of the rich list.
Where else do the world’s wealthiest people live?
Australia comes in 7th place this year, down from 3rd in 2023, behind Monaco, Luxemburg, Switzerland, the US, Singapore and Sweden.
Australia sits ahead of New Zealand, where US$4.574 million is required to enter the 1% club, but behind the likes of Monaco, which sits in top position, with US$12.883 million required to enter the top 1%.
Here’s the full list:
Source: Knight Frank
The report shows that, globally, the number of UHNWIs rose by 4.2% in 2023 to 626,619 from 601,300 a year earlier.
This increase more than reverses the decline witnessed in 2022.
At a regional level, North America leads with the number of UHNWIs up 7.2%, the Middle East comes in second place (6.2%) Africa takes third place, up 3.8% and Australasia comes in 4th at 2.9%.
Latin America was the only region to see its population of wealthy individuals decline (-3.6%).
In terms of key country performance, Turkey leads Knight Frank’s rankings with a 9.7% expansion in UHNWI numbers, followed by the US (7.9%), India (6.1%), South Korea (5.6%) and Switzerland (5.2%).
According to the report, the number of wealthy individuals globally is expected to increase by 28.1% over the next five years to 2028.
While positive, this rate of expansion is noticeably slower than the 44% increase experienced in the five-year period to 2023.
The report points to strong outperformance from Asia, with high growth in India (50%), the Chinese mainland (47%), Malaysia (35%) and Indonesia (34%).
What it takes to be among the top 1%
To be considered among Australia’s top 1% for income, you need to have an annual salary of $352,719 - which puts only our 2 highest income-earning professions in the richest bracket.
Surgeons are the highest-earning profession, making an average of $406,068 a year, or about $4,703 a week after tax, according to the latest ATO data.
Anaesthetists come in second place, earning an average of $388,814 a year, or around $4,527 a week after tax.
What it takes to be among the top 10%
To be among the top 10% of earners in Australia, you’d need to bring home a before-tax income of over $2,820 per week, according to the latest ATO data.
That equates to a before-tax income of $146,640 per year.
This, therefore, puts financial advisors ($155,882), engineering managers ($161,514) and even school principals ($130,142) among the top-earning professions.
By comparison, the average Aussie earns around $98,000 per year and the median is $65,400 a year in taxable income.
Homeowners make the rich list too, with the report categorising anyone with assets of US$1 million (AU$1.5 million) or more as a high-net-worth individual.
That means that any Aussie homeowner who owns a property with a value in excess of Sydney’s $1.18 million median is in the running for being among the world’s wealthiest.
Grow your net worth with property
At Metropole we recommend property investment as an excellent wealth-creation tool because it provides both high capital growth which grows your net worth, and a secure income which increases over time, to help you pay the mortgage.
And while it takes a few decades to grow a sufficient size asset base to become financially independent, using the power of leverage, it is possible to speed it up.
While there’s no “secret” to achieving significant net worth, there is a strategy.
All our wealthy clients at Metropole first built an asset base through capital growth and only then, once they had built a substantial asset base, they moved to the “cash flow” stage of their investing journey.
It also involves having a strategy and following a plan, because property investment is a long-term process, not an event.
While they had to save a deposit for their first property, the deposit and serviceability for future properties then came from their existing property portfolio.
So we strategise and buy properties for our clients to enable them to buy more properties.
And given that property is such an important factor when considering net worth, this strategy for property investment success can even jet rocket you into the top 1% of elite net-worth individuals as well.
