Who Benefited From The British Empire?

The British, and the children and grandchildren of the natives of the colonized countries.  Because of european colonialism, a lot of countries had rigorously enforced standards for both products and services enforced and ingrained by the time those countries left that meant that these countries were able to produce their own infrastructure to higher standards than their neighbors. An example would be looking at, say, the quality of bricks produced in thailand (which was not colonized but did give land to france, which became laos and cambodia after the french colonies were released) as opposed to the quality of bricks in malaysia- the standards of quality here (thailand) are low enough that many of the more clever builders here buy bricks from malaysia so that their houses don't fall down.