Survey: Record number of Britain's richest donate more than 1% of their wealth to charity

A record number of Britain's wealthiest people donated at least 1% of their wealth to charity last year, according to a survey published in The Sunday Times.

An analysis of donations from more than 300 people appearing in next weekend's The Sunday Times Rich List shows 105 gave more than 1% of their total wealth to charities over a year.

A total of £2.58bn was donated to charity during 2014, an increase of 7.8% on the previous year.

Sir Elton John was the highest-ranked celebrity on the 2015 Sunday Times Giving List, donating just under £24.1m – nearly 9% cent of his wealth – to charity in 2014. The bulk of it was given to his Aids Foundations in the UK and US.

Music and sport

Musicians and sports personalities feature heavily on the list. One Direction donated £1.2m (0.92%) last year, and are set to donate 50p from each ticket sold for their tour this year.

Coldplay donated £3.8m (1.82% of their wealth) through their J Van Mars Foundation, while singer-songwriter Eric Clapton donated £1.4m (0.88% of his total wealth).

Former England captain Steven Gerrard donated some £1.3m (3.14%) last year, while fellow footballers Didier Drogba and Rio Ferdinand gave £0.4m (1.57%) and £0.4m (0.85%) respectively.

Other famous faces include golfers Rory McIlroy, who gave £1m (2.63%) and Justin Rose, who donated £0.6m (2.57%).

According to the Times, a separate study by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) – which works with the paper to produce the list – found that people thought the super rich should donate at least 25% of their lifetime earnings to charity.

Only four people in the list met that standard, the paper reported. Supermarket mogul and Labour peer Lord Sainsbury and his family donated both the largest sum (£203.2m) and the largest proportion of their wealth (40.1%).