Top 10 gilts: all the data you need

Demand for direct gilts has shot up over the past couple of years, as rising yields have attracted buyers looking to generate a secure return from the UK government.

Secondary market gilt purchases on the ii platform jumped 50% in 2024 compared with the year before, with low-coupon gilts trading at a discount to their redemption value proving the most popular.

• Invest with ii: How Bonds & Gilts work  |  What is a Managed ISA?  |  Buy Bonds

Gilts can be tricky to understand. Because they trade on the secondary market (buying and selling before maturity via an investment platform), gilt yields are constantly shifting. Conventional gilts have fixed coupons, set at issue, but the price of the bond determines your yield if you plan to hold the gilt to maturity. We look into what gilts customers own, ranked by asset invested. 

• There’s more information on how gilts work here
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Gilts maturing soon with low coupons are the most popular among ii customers. 

The five most popular gilts mature in 2026, 2028, 2025 and 2031. All have low coupons as they were issued during periods of low interest rates. Of the top 10, by assets invested, just two mature on the “long” end, in 2050 and 2061.  

Short-term gilts are proving popular for two reasons. First, they don’t have much volatility as the “duration”, which is a measure of how sensitive a bond is to changes to interest rates, is low for bonds maturing soon.  

So, not only does the price not move much, but they will gradually tick towards their £100 redemption value as the maturity date approaches. You can see in the table that the gilts maturing soonest are nearly priced at £100.  

So, buying these gilts delivers low volatility and a guaranteed return if held to maturity. They are being used as fixed-term savings tools for investors, across ISAs, SIPPs and General Investment Accounts.  

But, actually, our data shows that most of these gilts are held in GIAs. The reason is simple: they have a very advantageous tax status compared with other investments.  

This is because gilts are free from capital gains tax, although income tax is due on coupons, if held outside ISAs or SIPPs.  

• Watch our video: what to do when your gilt matures 
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So, because the coupons are low on these gilts (sometimes even just 12.5p per nominal gilt paid in two semi-annual instalments), most of the yield-to-maturity comes from the capital uplift as the gilt creeps towards its £100 redemption value and finally pays back £100 when it matures.  

This capital uplift is tax-free, which boosts the return when compared to the tax-adjusted return from other investments. 

Most-popular gilts by assets held

Source: interactive investor/Tradeweb, 14 May 2025.

But not all gilts in our most-bought list have low coupons. One (TY25) has a coupon of £3.5 per gilt. It therefore trades just under its par value to give a yield of around 4%. Although this gilt is set to mature in October this year, longer-term holders would have been collecting most of their returns from this gilt from its coupon, as a £3.5 coupon, or a 3.5% yield if the gilt is trading at par, is close to what shorter-term gilts have been yielding over the past year or so.  

The other theme is that two longer-dated gilts appear: TG61 and TG50. They have low coupons and mature in 2061 and 2050, which means that the duration on these gilts is very high. So if interest rates fall, they could see large uplifts to their value, but if rates rise, then they could fall a lot in value. 

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Rather than holding these gilts to maturity, it is likely that customers are using these as a bet on the direction of interest rates. If rates fall more than the markets expect, their value could soar, with the difference between the buying and selling price also free from capital gains tax. 

The UK’s Debt Management Office has a list of gilts in issue here: https://www.dmo.gov.uk/data/gilt-market/gilts-in-issue/

And the London Stock Exchange’s website is a useful tool to find out when a gilt pays its coupons and matures.

Glossary

Gilt: the name includes reference to maturity date and coupon. Gilts are also assigned a stock market ticker, such as TN28.

Yield to maturity: an estimation of the annual return of holding the gilt to maturity, assuming coupons are reinvested.

Coupon: the total annual income per £100 nominal gilt. For example, a 5% coupon indicates a £5 annual payment per every gilt held, split into two £2.50 payments. 

Coupon dates: gilts pay coupons twice a year, with the final coupon coming on the maturity date.

Maturity date: this is when the gilt matures, paying investors back their £100 redemption value per gilt.

Price: “clean” price of the gilt not accounting for accrued interest before the next coupon is paid. The dealing cost may therefore be greater.

Distribution yield: also known as the “running yield”, this is your annualised yield from the coupons you receive (but not taking into account any capital appreciation) based on the price you pay for the gilt.

This article was originally published on 21 January 2025 and updated on 27 May 2025.