The number of UK millionaires has fallen by over half in the past two years, according to statistics from the Centre for Economic & Business Research.

While the UK boasted 489,000 millionaires in 2007 that figure has now fallen to 242,000, a drop which highlights the impact of the financial downturn and is in stark contrast to earlier predictions for the growth of the UK’s wealthy, the CEBR report said.

Earlier in the decade the growth in the ranks of UK millionaires seemed unstoppable: there were an estimated 376,000 UK millionaires in 2006 (up from 230,000 in 2003) and the CEBR predicted that this figure would climb to 760,000 by 2010.

Instead, after a financial crisis which saw the MSCI World Index of developed countries’ equities slump 40.7 per cent last year, the CEBR report shows that membership of the millionaires club was all too fleeting for many.

In addition to falls in equity markets, the CEBR points out that the reduction in the number of UK millionaires also reflects the collapse in the property market and a 70 per cent drop in City bonuses.

The CEBR estimates that the wealth of the average UK millionaire has fallen by 24 per cent in the past year, but losses have been even heavier for the super-wealthy. According to the Sunday Times Rich List the number of UK billionaires fell from 75 in 2008 to 43 this year and the estimated wealth of those on the list has fallen by 38 per cent.

Such declines in wealth are having wide ranging implications, not least in the sales of luxury goods: sales of Bentley cars are down by 66 per cent this year to date against an overall decline in car sales of 29 per cent, the CEBR said.