Welcome to the age of AI and athleisure. Nearly half of those featured in The Sunday Times 40 under 40 Rich List built their fortunes from either artificial intelligence or fashion.
Other famous figures include Harry Styles, Dua Lipa, Rory McIlroy, Anthony Joshua — and Tyson Fury, boxing’s “Gypsy King” and a reality star, debuts at No 29 with an estimated wealth of £162 million.
This year’s research also found
- A combined wealth of £26.3 billion — 26 per cent less than in 2025, largely because one of last year’s billionaires is now too old.
- Of the 47 individuals named, two are Polish, two are Danish, one German, one a New Zealander and one has joint British and Albanian citizenship.
- There are four sets of brothers: Oliver and Alexander Kent-Braham, Tom and Phil Beahon, Ryan and Reece Broadhurst, and Mike and George Heaton.
Significantly, almost a third (13) of those named in our fourth edition of 40 under 40 owe their places to one of the burgeoning crop of London-based AI start-ups. ElevenLabs, the synthetic voice developer backed by the Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey, is now worth £8.1 billion — three times as much as 12 months ago — pushing the Polish techies Piotr Dabkowski and Mati Staniszewski, both 31, into joint third behind the Duke of Westminster and Lady Charlotte Wellesley.
A round of fundraising has also driven Alex Kendall, 33, and Amar Shah, 38, the founders of Wayve, a developer of software for electric vehicles, up our rankings. It’s a similar story at Synthesia, an AI video creation platform, with investment lifting the wealth of its London-based but Danish-born founders, Victor Riparbelli, 34, and Steffen Tjerrild, 35.
Some have PhDs … others didn’t go to university
Ben Francis, 33, dropped out of Aston University to focus on his sports brand Gymshark, learning to make hoodies after taking sewing lessons from his mother and grandmother. The married couple Dan and Melanie Marsden, 34 and 33, started their lingerie retailer by making 100 bras from a spare room at Melanie’s parents’ house.
New entry Jade Holland Cooper, 39, began her fashion label by selling skirts from a stall at the Badminton Horse Trials. Her fellow debutants Ryan and Reece Broadhurst, 32 and 30, were also unlikely tastemakers when they set up their streetwear label Arne — one had trained as a psychiatric nurse, the other had been working in timber yards.
These stories underscore how a gilded upbringing or stellar academic career are not essential for financial success. Self-made fortunes far outstrip inherited wealth: 35 of our 40 entries made their fortunes themselves. Importantly, the business founders featured here have already generated more than 15,800 jobs, according to our analysis of their companies’ latest accounts.
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