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I’m interested in investing in Next shares, but I noticed the current share price is around 14,000 pence. Does this mean that purchasing just one share would cost £140?

If that’s the case, how can I go about investing in Next if I only want to invest £100 in its shares?

Are there any other UK companies with similarly high prices for individual shares? P.M

Have a question about investments? Send it to us at: EDITOR@THISISMONEY.CO.UK

Big budget: Next has one of the highest share prices in the UK at 14,000p

Sam Bromley, money and consumer guides writer at This is Money, responds: It can be a bit perplexing, but stock prices in the UK are listed in pence instead of pounds on the London Stock Exchange.

In the US stock prices are quoted in dollars, which eliminates the need to do some quick maths to work out how much you’ll pay for a share.

It’s not clear why this is the case, but one theory suggests it’s a holdover from before the pound was decimalised in the 1970s. It was easier to quote in pence rather than introducing units such as shillings into the equation – and not many companies were priced at more than £1 a share regardless.

Your question circles around the ability to buy a smaller slice of a single share – otherwise known as fractional shares.

Fractional shares are now firmly established when buying US companies, some of which reach hundreds of dollars a share.

The retailer Next is among the most expensive UK companies by share price, but fractional shares are rarer when investing in UK companies. We spoke to Duncan Ferris, analyst at the investment platform Freetrade, to find out more.

Duncan Ferris, Freetrade analyst, replies: A single Next share would indeed set you back £140 at the time of writing.

The retailer is not the only UK company with such a high share price. Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and model-maker Games Workshop are similarly priced, while engineering firm Goodwin is even higher.

Even if you don’t have the full cost of one of these shares in your pocket, there are still ways to gain exposure.

One option is fractional shares. These allow investors to buy a portion of a full share. If you only have £100, you can buy an equivalent portion of a Next share. It will rise and fall in value in line with the company’s underlying share price.

However, not all brokers and trading platforms offer fractional share dealing. And fractional dealing in US shares is generally more widely available than for UK shares like Next. 

Why? Well, for starters, the demand for UK fractional shares isn’t as high as in the US. Granted, £140 is a lot for a single share, but it’s far below the thousands of dollars you would need to buy one share in some US–listed companies. 

Booking.com owner Booking Holdings, for example, trades at over $5,000. Sky–high share prices like this make fractionals a necessity for many retail investors.

UK-listed fractionals can also be harder for brokers and platforms to offer, as they add extra admin around record-keeping, corporate actions and customer disclosures, and platforms also need to meet the FCA’s Consumer Duty expectations.

But the availability of UK fractional shares may improve over time. Isa rules changed in late 2024 to allow fractional shares in Isas. Moves like this, along with Government efforts to spur more UK retail investment, may increase demand.

Fractional shares are not the only option for investors. You can get exposure to Next and other high–priced stocks with index funds that track the performance of the FTSE 100, or relevant UK equity sector funds and ETFs (exchange-traded funds).

ETFs and index funds can be lower–cost options and also provide greater diversification, reducing the risk of having all your eggs in one basket.

Which investment platforms allow you to buy fractional shares of UK companies?

Sam Bromley of This is Money says: There’s a startlingly small number of investment platforms that allow you to buy fractional shares in UK companies, but Etoro*, Trading 212* and XTB are among platforms that do so.

Trading 212 and XTB allow it within both a stocks and shares Isa and general investment account. Etoro only allows it within a general investment account.

You can buy fractional shares of Next through each of these platforms.

When it comes to buying fractional shares of US companies, your choice becomes wider. In addition to the above platforms, popular providers that allow this within a stocks and shares Isa include Freetrade*, Moneybox and Revolut.

Plum* allows fractional investing in US stocks, but not within a stocks and shares Isa. In fact, its stocks and shares Isa doesn’t support individual stock picking at all – you can only do so within a general investment account.

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