Dragons’ Den Statistics: Every Season by the Numbers (2026)

Across 22 series, Dragons' Den has seen an estimated 1,491 products pitched and 448 deals done, a headline deal rate of 30 percent. Total investment across every series comes to £17.8 million, at an average of £40,000 per deal. Here is the full breakdown, season by season and Dragon by Dragon.

These figures come from our own index of on-air deals across every UK series and are the numbers we use consistently across this site, so any figure quoted elsewhere on Dragons' Den Index ties back to the totals below.

The headline numbers

448 deals from roughly 1,491 pitches works out to a 30 percent overall deal rate, meaning around seven in ten founders who walk into the Den leave without an offer. The £17.8 million invested across the show's history averages out to £40,000 per deal, though that average hides a wide spread, from deals as small as a few thousand pounds up to the £250,000 top-end cheques covered elsewhere on this site.

Notably, the Den has never recorded a royalty deal or a loan-based deal in its history: every single deal has been a straightforward equity investment. Of the 448 deals, 92 involved more than one Dragon investing together, meaning roughly one in five deals is a joint deal rather than a single Dragon acting alone.

The deal rate has climbed steadily

The clearest trend in the data is how much easier it has become to get a deal. In series 1, only 13 percent of pitches landed investment. By series 12, that had climbed to 31 percent, and it kept climbing from there: 45 percent in series 15, 50 percent in series 18, and 58 percent in the most recent series 22, the highest deal rate the show has ever recorded.

Part of that shift likely reflects better-prepared founders, sharper pitch coaching and a production process that filters out weaker pitches earlier, rather than the Dragons simply becoming more generous. It is worth noting the dip in series 2, which recorded the lowest deal rate on record at 7 percent, and the slow, uneven climb through the show's middle years before the rate began accelerating from series 12 onward.

The jump between series 14 (30 percent) and series 15 (45 percent) is the single largest year-on-year increase in the show's history, a 15-point rise that roughly coincides with the show's move toward a more consistently high deal rate for every series that followed.

Peter Jones leads every category

Peter Jones has done 77 deals worth more than £3.1 million, more of both than any other Dragon in the show's history, a natural result of being the only Dragon to appear in every series since 2005. Deborah Meaden is second with 66 deals and about £2.6 million invested. Touker Suleyman has done 41 deals worth roughly £1.5 million, and Sara Davies, across her six years on the panel, closed 36 deals worth about £1.3 million.

Theo Paphitis sits at 20 deals and £1.2 million, and Duncan Bannatyne at 14 deals and £995,000, both figures reflecting shorter or earlier tenures on the panel relative to Jones and Meaden. Steven Bartlett is the most recent addition to this ranking, with 13 deals to his name, all from series 22 and every one of them made jointly with another Dragon.

Deal size versus deal volume

Ranking Dragons purely by deal count tells only part of the story. Theo Paphitis, for instance, averages £101,000 per deal across his 20 deals, the highest average of any Dragon in our full index, despite ranking fifth by volume. Duncan Bannatyne's average of £110,000 across just 14 deals is even higher. Compare that with Peter Jones's average of £74,000 across 77 deals, and the picture that emerges is of two different investing styles: some Dragons write fewer, bigger cheques, while others do a higher volume of moderate-sized deals.

What the numbers say about pitching today

If you take one thing from this data, it is that the odds of landing a deal have roughly doubled since the show's early years, from around 13 to 20 percent in the first handful of series to well over 50 percent in the most recent ones. That does not mean pitching has become easy. It means founders arrive better prepared, and Dragons are working with a stronger pool of applicants than they were two decades ago.

For anyone studying the show to prepare their own pitch, the season-by-season deal rate is a genuinely useful signal of how the format, and the standard of the businesses walking through the door, has changed over time.

The headline numbers

1,491

Total pitches

448

Deals made on air

30%

Overall deal rate

£17.8M

Committed on air

£40K

Average deal size

92

Multi-dragon deals

Deal rate by series

Deal rates have shifted over the life of the show as the format matured and founders turned up better prepared. Here is how often the dragons bit, series by series.

The dragons, ranked

On-air commitments across all series, for the main dragons.

1. 1Peter Jones77 deals£3.1M
2. 2Deborah Meaden66 deals£2.6M
3. 3Touker Suleyman41 deals£1.5M
4. 4Sara Davies36 deals£1.3M
5. 5Theo Paphitis20 deals£1.2M
6. 6Duncan Bannatyne14 deals£995K
7. 7Steven Bartlett13 dealsn/a

Deal structures

Not every deal is straight equity: 0 deals included a royalty component, where the dragon takes a payment on every unit sold, and 0 involved a loan or venture-debt element. 92 deals had two or more dragons teaming up, splitting both the cheque and the equity.

Citing these numbers? Feel free, link to this page as the source. Data covers Dragons’ Den UK Series 1–22 as aired; on-air deals sometimes change or fall through in diligence afterward.