The Duke of Gloucester, 81, quietly outperformed the heir to the throne in royal duties last year.
Prince Richard, the second-oldest working member of the Royal Family, carried out 212 official engagements throughout 2025, surpassing Prince William’s tally of 202.
The Prince of Wales did substantially increase his workload from 139 engagements in 2024, yet still fell short of his octogenarian cousin’s total.
The duke conducted his duties without much public attention, steadily working through his schedule while the younger generation of royals attracted the spotlight.
Duke of Gloucester, 81, quietly outperforms Prince William in number of Royal Family duties
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The comparison between the two figures offers a striking illustration of the varied approaches to royal service across different generations of the House of Windsor.
Meanwhile, Princess Kate returned to public duties with 68 engagements following her announcement early in the year that she was in remission from cancer.
During a visit to Colchester Hospital in Essex in July, she spoke candidly about her recovery: “You put on a sort of brave face, stoicism through treatment. Treatment’s done, then it’s like, ‘I can crack on, get back to normal,’ but actually, the phase afterwards is really, really difficult.”
She added: “You’re not necessarily under the clinical team any longer, but you’re not able to function normally at home as you perhaps once used to.”
The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester pictured arriving at the Guildhall | REUTERS
The Prince and Princess of Wales have maintained that they prefer to focus on meaningful impact rather than simply accumulating appearances.
They have also committed to protecting family time while their three children remain young, reserving school holidays and maintaining the daily school run.
The King emerged as the most industrious member of the Royal Family in 2025, completing 533 engagements despite receiving weekly cancer treatment throughout the year.
His total exceeded that of Princess Anne, who recorded 478 engagements, though she worked across more individual days at 186.
Prince William and Kate have maintained that they prefer to focus on meaningful impact
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The monarch’s schedule included travelling extensively across Britain, welcoming three state visits, and undertaking overseas trips to Italy, Canada and Poland.
His 2025 figures marked a significant recovery from 2024, when his cancer diagnosis forced him to temporarily withdraw from public-facing duties, limiting him to 353 engagements.
Buckingham Palace recently confirmed that his treatment had progressed so successfully that he would be “significantly” reducing his weekly sessions as they entered a “precautionary phase” from January.
The 10 working royals collectively undertook 2,459 engagements in 2025, representing a 23 per cent rise from the 2,001 recorded the previous year when both the King and Princess of Wales received cancer diagnoses.
King Charles has beaten Princess Anne as 2025’s hardest-working royal
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Analyst Patricia Treble described the monarch as “indefatigable” to the Telegraph and observed that as 2025 progressed, “it felt like the House of Windsor was making up for lost time”.
Nearly all working royals expanded their schedules significantly, with increases ranging from Princess Anne’s 10.39 per cent to the Princess of Wales’s 423 per cent, the latter reflecting her near-complete withdrawal during chemotherapy in 2024.
Ms Treble told the publication: “If there is one take-away from the data this year, it’s that the working royals are doing OK, for now.
“But their numbers are shrinking – now 10, compared to 16 in 2018 – and there is no avoiding the effect that getting older is having on how much work they can do, and where they can do it.
“Yet, the King is indefatigable. The 533 engagements he did in 2025 were the most he’d done since 2019, when he did 541.”