Global wealth skyrocketed 8.3 per cent over the past year to a record $263trillion (￡165trillion), a report revealed today.

But the research by Credit Suisse found the distribution of the riches has become increasingly unequal - with the median wealth plunging 14 per cent since 2007 to $3,641 (￡2,289) per adult.

As a sign of wealth concentration, the number of dollar millionaires globally has shot up 164 per cent since 2000 to 34.8million individuals today - with 41 per cent of them living in the United States.

Global wealth now stands 20 per cent above the peak before the global financial crisis and 39 per cent above the low seen at the height of the crisis in 2008, according to the Global Wealth Report.

It said: ‘The overall global economy may remain sluggish, but this has not prevented personal wealth from surging ahead during the past year.’

The study of the wealth holdings of 4.7billion adults in more than 200 countries found aggregate household wealth has more than doubled since 2000, when it stood at $117trillion (￡74trillion).

And in the next five years, wealth is expected to rise by 40 per cent to $369trillion (￡231trillion). Today, each adult has an average of $56,000 ($35,000) - an all-time high for average net worth.

The decline in the median to $3,641 - the level at which half of the sample is lower and half higher - indicates that inequality, which remained flat or declined from 2000 to 2007, is once again rising.

‘The findings show that inequality has tended to rise since 2008, particularly in developing economies,’ Markus Stierli of the Credit Suisse Research Institute said.

The study credits most of the rise in wealth over the past year to North America, which accounts for 34.7 per cent of global household wealth, and Europe, which accounts for 32.4 per cent.

Both regions showed hikes of about 11 per cent. In contrast, Latin America saw little change, while China recorded only a small rise of around 3.5 per cent, and India saw its wealth fall 1 per cent.

On a country level, Britain, South Korea and Denmark recorded the largest percentage gains, while Ukraine, Argentina and Indonesia saw the largest losses, it said.

Switzerland meanwhile maintained the highest average wealth per adult, at $581,000 (￡365,000), followed by Australia, Norway, the U.S. and Sweden.

Some 128,000 of the world's millionaires have assets of at least $50million (￡31million), with nearly half of them living in the U.S. and nearly a quarter in Europe.

Credit Suisse said it expected the number of global millionaires to exceed 53million in 2019, with the number in China expected to nearly double from its 1.18million today.

Some one billion people meanwhile belong to the global middle class, with wealth ranging from $10,000 (￡6,000) to $100,000 (￡63,000), the study showed.

China's share of the middle class has doubled since 2000 and now accounts for one third of people in that category, it said.