About the maps

This page provides a bit more background and information on the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2019 outputs available on this website. In addition, we have provided the summary data files used to produce the maps, of which there are 1,451 in total. This includes the MSOA-level IMD 2019 data that we calculated as part of this project.

The material here was produced by the University of Sheffield, in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and mySociety.

We have created these outputs in the hope that they will be both useful and widely used. No permission is required - they have been created as a free public resource.

Background

The English Indices of Deprivation 2019 provide statistics on relative deprivation for small areas across England, and they are widely used in a policy context. The most frequently used of these datasets is the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2019 (IMD 2019) and this is what our map and data outputs relate to.

For each area mapped, we have shown the proportion of small areas (lower-layer super output areas, or LSOAs) within each higher-level geography that fall within each ‘decile’ of the IMD.

That is, the maps show which areas are amongst the most deprived 10%, 20%, 30% and so on in each area, all the way to the least deprived 10%. This is a very common way of presenting the results and enables users to gain an understanding of local areas and how they compare with other parts of the country, and to England overall.

Outputs

Although the files created as part of the Indices of Deprivation 2019 are comprehensive, users often require more tailored geographical outputs. For example, NHS researchers may wish to match deprivation data to health geographies such as Clinical Commissioning Group areas, or an MP may wish to understand more about the level of deprivation within their own constituency. This information is not always readily available, and individuals themselves may lack the time or resources to create such outputs.

Therefore, we have provided LSOA-based outputs that match four different geographies, as follows:

  1. NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (135) - we have summarised IMD 2019 data at this geographical level in order to provide useful outputs for anyone working with health-related geographies.
  2. Local Authorities (314 x 2) - we have created a new set of IMD 2019 outputs relating to the set of 314 English local authority areas, as they were on 1 April 2020 (i.e. this includes the newly-created local authority of Buckinghamshire). We have also provided MSOA-level maps for local authorities. For the MSOA-level maps, we aggregated the LSOA data to MSOAs using the method described on pages 69 and 70 of Appendix A in the English Indices of Deprivation 2019: research report.
  3. Constituencies (533) - we also created a set of IMD 2019 maps for all Westminster parliamentary constituencies in England. These provide a very close match with LSOA boundaries, but there are a small number of cases where LSOAs do not ‘nest’ neatly within constituencies. Where this occurs, we assigned LSOAs to a constituency based on population-weighted centroids. That is, if an LSOA was split between more than one constituency, it was assigned to a single constituency based on which constituency its population-weighted centroid fell within.
  4. Travel to work areas (155) - the final set of outputs is provided for this functional labour market geography, which is based on commuting flows, and the concept of ‘self-containment’. Travel to work areas (TTWAs) became the official British definition of local labour market areas in the 1960s and are widely used in policy contexts where a functional economic definition of geographic space is needed. There are a total of 149 TTWAs wholly within England, but our set of maps also includes outputs for those that straddle the Welsh (5) or Scottish border (1).

Further information

The main English Indices of Deprivation 2019 website is the best place to look if you want to learn more about the data used here. All the underlying data, summary reports, technical information and additional reference documentation can be found there.

This project was a collaboration between mySociety, the University of Sheffield and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), and was undertaken during the first half of 2020.

If you do have further questions about the data, the FAQ document produced by MHCLG is the best starting point. There is also a contact email address at the end of this FAQ document, should you have any further questions.

Data

The underlying IMD data used in this project is available from the MHCLG website, on the main English Indices of Deprivation 2019 page. What we have provided below are links to the four summary files that show the number and percentage of LSOAs in each different geography (CCG, local authority, constituency, TTWA), that fall within each national decile on the IMD 2019.

In addition, we have provided our MSOA-level summary file, containing data for each of England’s 6,791 MSOAs. This file includes the House of Commons Library MSOA Names for each MSOA in England, as well as which region it is in, an LSOA count for each MSOA, in addition to the population-weighted MSOA score and corresponding national rank, from 1 (most deprived) to 6,791 (least deprived). We have also provided columns for decile (where 1 is most deprived, 10 least deprived) and quintile (where 1 is most deprived, 5 is least deprived).