The Government has committed to raising living standards in every part of the United Kingdom. Delivering that ambition requires understanding where current conditions fall short, and at what scale.
The standard measure of deprivation in the UK – the Indices of Multiple Deprivation – rank neighbourhoods relative to one another. But the conditions it measures are not just produced at the neighbourhood level. The quality of local labour markets, access to housing, and the reach of public transport are all shaped by the wider city economy in which those neighbourhoods sit. A deprived neighbourhood in Cambridge faces different conditions to a deprived neighbourhood in Blackburn, even if their IMD scores are similar.
Cities are home to over half the population, almost two-thirds of the economy and contain a disproportionate share of the country’s most deprived neighbourhoods. Understanding deprivation, and what the living standards mission requires, means looking at the scale at which those conditions actually play out: the city.
The uneven geography of urban deprivation
This briefing examines how deprivation and affluence are distributed between and within UK cities, and how that distribution has changed since 2010, using the Indices of Multiple Deprivation across all four nations. It finds that deprivation in Britain is fundamentally urban, but that its geography, internal structure, and recent trajectory vary enormously from city to city:
Two-thirds of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the UK are in cities, even though cities and non-urban areas each account for roughly half of all neighbourhoods. Affluent neighbourhoods, by contrast, are split evenly between urban and non-urban areas.
The most deprived cities are concentrated outside the Greater South East. Of the 44 cities outside the GSE, 35 have above-expected shares of deprivation. In Cambridge just 1 per cent of neighbourhoods are deprived, compared to 58 per cent in Blackburn. Nine cities have more than 40 per cent of their neighbourhoods in the most-deprived national tier, and all nine are outside the GSE.
Within cities, deprivation concentrates in urban cores and affluence in suburbs. In the most deprived cities this divide is especially stark: For example, 96 per cent of Bradford’s urban core neighbourhoods are deprived, even though the city as a whole is 51 per cent deprived. Of 35 cities with affluent suburbs, 26 have below-expected levels of affluence in their urban cores.
The headline national picture of deprivation falling slightly and affluence rising is comprised of very different trajectories within and between cities:
The national fall in urban core deprivation since 2010 has been driven overwhelmingly by a small number of large cities. London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Glasgow account for 93 per cent of the total decrease, with London alone accounting for 87 per cent. Across most medium and small cities, inner-city deprivation has increased.
Suburbs are polarising. 25 of 62 cities saw both suburban deprivation and affluence rise since 2010.
Areas outside cities show the opposite pattern to inner cities: deprivation has risen in hinterlands and deep rural areas, while affluence in those areas has fallen.
Place matters for deprivation policy
There is no single pattern of deprived Britain. Deprivation looks different in different cities and is changing in different ways. Addressing deprivation and delivering the Government’s living standards mission requires policy responses that are designed at the scale of the city economies in which those conditions are produced. A forthcoming second briefing will examine the different forms of deprivation found within cities and their relationship to local economic performance.