What is JK Rowling’s net worth?
▲ £945 million
£875 million in 2023
A new screen adaptation of Rowling’s Harry Potter books is poised to introduce the boy wizard and his friends to a new generation of fans. The Edinburgh-based author will be an executive producer of the “decade-long” saga now under development by Warner Bros Discovery. A first series is expected to air in 2026 and will no doubt keep royalties from her Hogwarts’ tales rolling in for many years to come.
Spin-offs from the original seven books featuring the boy wizard also continue. The stage show Harry Potter and the Cursed Child fills theatres in the West End of London, Hamburg, Tokyo and New York. A US tour begins next year.
Rowling, 58, has sold more than 600 million books featuring the wizarding trio of Harry, Hermione and Ron. But in recent years she has concentrated on fiction for adults. The Running Grave, her seventh tale in the Cormoran Strike series, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, last September topped bestseller charts in the UK, US and Australia. The books’ hero is a war veteran turned private detective and several of the tales have been dramatised by the BBC.
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Long regarded as one of the world’s best-loved authors, in recent years Rowling has been at the centre of one of the most contentious public debates of our age — trans rights. Her zealous defence of women’s and children’s rights on social media have led to claims that the Rowling is transphobic. She strongly denies that suggestion, adding that as a victim of domestic abuse she felt she should speak up to defend women-only spaces.
Nevertheless, some of the actors who made fortunes of their own through her stories — including Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson — have made statements supporting trans people. The ensuing storms in both social and traditional media has not damaged sales of her books.
Rowling, who was born near Bristol and studied at the University of Exeter, is thought to have earned more than £1 billion from her pen over the years. The author is believed to have brought in a further £200 million from the original eight Harry Potter films. She would easily be a billionaire were it not for her extensive philanthropy and her decision to stay in the UK.
The author has said she wanted her children to grow up in “a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s” rather than “living in the limbo of some tax haven” and associating only with “greedy tax exiles”. She has also spoken of a debt she owes to the welfare state, relying on benefits while writing her first Hogwarts tale.
“When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s government, was there to break the fall,” she said. “It would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque.”
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As a result, Rowling has become a regular fixture on the Sunday Times Tax List. Her contribution to Scotland’s public finances were put at £40 million in the 2024 rankings.
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Rowling’s Volant Charitable Trust, named after her mother, helps to fund charitable organisations and projects in Scotland helping women, children and young people and has built up £68.2 million of assets since she founded it in 2000, distributing £3.1 million last year to Medicins San Frontieres, British Red Cross and other causes.
Despite her philanthropy, a strong year ensures her wealth climbs to £945 million this year. If her fortune increases further, expect Rowling’s giving to increase. She dislikes the term billionaire and will happily resort to charity to escape the tag.
View the full list to see where money was made and lost in the last year
