Andy Burnham lets out a flat in south London, and his government’s first Budget has announced a tax rise for landlords like him.
How much is Andy Burnham worth? There is no official answer. The Prime Minister has never put a figure on his wealth, and the £1 million to £2.5 million estimates that have done the rounds online since June 2026 name no source.
He is paid £174,039 a year as MP and Prime Minister. Beyond that, his declared finances come down to three entries on the Cabinet Office’s list of ministers’ interests, published on 15 October 2026: pension funds, a stocks and shares ISA and a let property. The property is a two-bedroom former council flat in Kennington, south London, which he co-owns with his wife, Marie-France van Heel.
That flat got him called a hypocrite in May 2026. Five months later, on 28 October, his Chancellor, John Healey, announced a rise in the income tax landlords pay on rental profits from April 2027, and the Prime Minister is one of those landlords.
Table of Contents
Burnham’s money in numbers
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Pay as MP and Prime Minister | £174,039 a year |
| Pledged to charity | 15% of his pay, about £26,100 a year |
| Public pay since 2001 | About £2.4 million before tax (Headline Magazine calculation) |
| London flat | Bought for £215,000 in 2005; up to £480,000 on the Sun’s May 2026 estimate; co-owned with his wife |
| Family home | Leigh area of Greater Manchester; not declared |
| Pensions and savings | Pension funds and a stocks and shares ISA; no values published |
| Wife’s shares in Be.EV’s parent company | 252, about 0.3% of the company (February 2026) |
Is Andy Burnham a millionaire?
Possibly, once his home and pensions are counted, but no public record puts a number on either.
The Kennington flat is the only asset with a price attached, and market experts quoted by the Sun put it at up to £480,000 in May. Because he co-owns it, only part of that value is his, and he has never said how much, if anything, is left on the mortgage.
Nothing else has a published value. The family home in the Leigh area doesn’t have to be declared, though in 2015 his office said he was paying a mortgage on it. His pension funds and ISA appear on the Cabinet Office list without figures.
The flat Burnham said he could no longer afford
Burnham bought the flat in 2005 and, as MPs were allowed to at the time, claimed the mortgage interest on expenses. The rules changed after the 2009 expenses scandal, and by August 2012 he had moved out. He explained why in a statement that year:
“All this has left me in the unusual situation of having a flat in London on which I have a mortgage to pay but where I am unable to live. I don’t want to sell it so have had to rent it out.”
He rented another flat nearby on expenses and let his own, saying the rent covered the mortgage, the letting agent’s fee and maintenance. In 2015 his office put it more bluntly: “No money is made from renting out the flat.” It also said he had repaid the Commons a lump sum, something MPs who had claimed mortgage interest were asked to do under the new rules.
In May 2026, while he campaigned for a seat in Parliament, the Sun on Sunday reported that the flat had doubled in value and set that against his own words on housing. In a 2025 interview he had spoken of a divide between “the haves and the have nots”, and in 2023 he backed a rent freeze. Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative Party chairman, said Burnham complained of unfairness while belonging to “the landlord class”. Burnham declined to comment.
What the Budget means for Burnham as a landlord
Healey’s Budget on 28 October 2026 added two percentage points to the income tax on rental profits from 6 April 2027, on top of the same rise Rachel Reeves announced in November 2025. The Prime Minister’s salary puts him in the top band, which starts at £125,140, so any taxable profit on his share of the rent will be taxed at 49% instead of 45%.
| Tax year | Rate on rental profit, top band | Tax on £1,000 of profit |
|---|---|---|
| 2026/27 | 45% | £450 |
| From April 2027 | 49% | £490 |
He has said the rent only covers his costs, but he could still owe tax on it. Since April 2020, landlords who own property in their own names have not been able to deduct mortgage interest when working out their tax, and get a basic-rate credit instead. That can leave a top-rate taxpayer with a bill even when the rent only just covers the mortgage. He has not published his rent or mortgage, so there is no way to tell what, if anything, he will owe.
What Burnham earns as Prime Minister
His salary as MP for Makerfield is £98,599. Government salary data shows the Prime Minister’s job carries an entitlement of £83,837, but he claims £75,440, the frozen rate recent prime ministers have taken. That brings his pay to £174,039, more than four times the £40,911 the Office for National Statistics gave as median full-time pay in April 2026.
He has pledged 15% of both salaries, about £26,100 a year. The MP’s share goes to causes in Makerfield, and he told the Big Issue in August 2026 that the Prime Minister’s share would go to homelessness charities.
His pay since 2001, and his pensions
Burnham grew up in Culcheth, Cheshire, the son of a telephone engineer and a GP receptionist. Since he became MP for Leigh in 2001, almost all his income has come from public office.
Headline Magazine’s tally of the official pay for each post he has held comes to about £2.4 million before tax between June 2001 and the end of October 2026:
- MP for Leigh, 2001 to 2017: about £1 million
- Extra pay as a minister, 2005 to 2010: £270,000 to £300,000
- Mayor of Greater Manchester, 2017 to 2026: about £1 million, rising from £110,000 a year to £121,000 in 2024/25
- MP for Makerfield and Prime Minister, June to October 2026: about £58,000
That is before income tax and National Insurance, and before the roughly £156,000 he gave to homelessness causes as mayor.
MPs can join the Commons pension scheme, but no figure for any pension from his 16 years as MP for Leigh has been published. The mayor’s job added no workplace pension. The Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s audited accounts record £0 in employer pension contributions for him in 2023/24 and 2024/25, and a 2024 report to the authority said the mayor had no access to a scheme with employer contributions.
Andy Burnham’s wife, Marie-France van Heel, and her Be.EV shares
Marie-France van Heel, Burnham’s wife since 2000, is a marketing executive whose career has included senior roles at MTV and Sky. In early 2022 she worked at Heavenly, a branding agency whose clients included the company now trading as Be.EV. That business has run the public car chargers of Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) since 2019, under a contract awarded by TfGM’s executive board, which Burnham does not sit on.
During the row over the region’s planned clean air zone, social media posts made false claims about her finances. In February 2022 Burnham said she owned no shares in Be.EV’s parent company, and that he had declared the link and stepped back from EV charging decisions.
She joined Be.EV in 2023, according to the Daily Mail, and later became its chief customer officer. On 17 September 2024 she was also appointed a director of the parent company, Iduna Infrastructure. When she stepped down from the executive job in September 2026, Downing Street said she would stay on the board “in an advisory role”.
Iduna’s February 2026 filing at Companies House lists 252 shares in her name, about 0.3% of the company, none with a vote. They are growth shares, which pay out only if the company’s value climbs past a set level. The types of share she holds were created in 2024, two years after the rumours, and issued for £71.75 in total across everyone who received them. Iduna lost £18.8 million in 2025 and ended the year owing £26.8 million more than it owned.
Her salary has not been published. Iduna’s accounts show its directors received £912,434 between them in 2025 without saying who got what, and online estimates of her net worth, from £500,000 to £1.5 million, name no source.
Her seat on the board still limits what the Prime Minister can decide. Downing Street said in September that he had “already recused himself of any decisions relating to EV charging”. On 25 October 2026 the Sunday Times reported that he had handed the decision on electric car sales targets to Louise Haigh, the First Secretary of State, and Downing Street declined to comment. Carmakers want the targets cut, and ministers are divided. The Department for Transport said that day that no decision had been taken.
