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Investigating the Index of Multiple Deprivation

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Independent lesson on the IMD

As you go through these slides, make notes on the content and complete the activities.
Instructions highlighted in blue are the minimum that you must write down / make notes on.
If a title or sub-title is highlighted in blue, this means that ALL of the notes that follow are essential.

The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) is an important measure that comes up countless times throughout the topic so it is essential to understand.

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The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD)

When you’re studying Changing Places, references to deprivation, inequality and the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) will be frequent.

Before we start, write down the definitions of those key words:

Deprivation: lacking the resources considered to be necessities in a society.
Inequality: the state of not being equal. Inequality exists in a place if people have different levels of access to resources such as housing, income and public services.
The IMD: a measure used by the Government to show how deprived an area is compared to the rest of the country.

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Before we look at the IMD in more detail, consider the answers to the following questions:

Deprivation: if we’re thinking about life in the UK, what resources are considered necessities in British society? In other words, what resources would you be lacking if you’re deprived in �the UK?
Inequality: do we need to take action to reduce inequality in society? If yes, why? If no, why not?
Deprivation and inequality: why is it important for the government to measure both of these? What can they do with this data?

Deprivation and inequality

Activity

Watch this Newsnight video to look at inequality in the UK in more detail.�

Consider: what do �you think are the geographical dimensions of inequality?

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The Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD)

This presentation is about the English Index of Multiple Deprivation. Links to the IMD for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are given at the end. �

Why is the IMD important? It is essential to understand the IMD when studying Changing Places for several different reasons.

The IMD of an area can be used to determine the need for regeneration.
Changes to the IMD over time can be used as a measure of the success of regeneration.
Levels of deprivation (shown by IMD score) are known to impact people’s lived experience of, and engagement with, places.

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The seven domains of the English IMD

The English IMD has seven domains. These contribute different proportions to the overall score.

Think about:

Why do you think income and employment are the most significant domains for the final score?
Are any elements of life not included in the index?
Do you agree with the contribution each domain makes to the total, e.g. do you think it’s right that income makes up 22.5% of the�total score while crime�makes up 9.3%?

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Using the English IMD

The English IMD measures the relative deprivation of small areas of England. It uses lower-layer super output areas. �
A lower-layer super output area (LSOA) is an area that has an average population of 1500 or 650 households.
LSOAs in rural areas will be a much bigger area of land than in urban areas because of the lower population density.
However, using areas that contain roughly the same population means that statistics can be compared accurately between different areas. �
A rank of 1^st means that area is the most deprived in England.
A rank of 33,755^th means that area is the least deprived in England.

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Using the IMD

The fact that the IMD is a relative rank is important. �It means that whilst the IMD can reveal a lot about an area, it has to be used carefully.
The activity on the next slide allows you to consider why.

Activity

Exploring the English IMD 2025 data.

Click here.
Consider the pattern of deprivation across the UK. What patterns emerge?

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Think about:

Which domain does the area perform best in?
Which domain does the area perform least well in?

Activity

Click here to explore the IMD mapping resources. Use them to explore the relative deprivation of:

the LSOA that contains your school
the LSOA that contains your home or another family members home
the different places that you have studied in the Changing Places topic.

Exploring the English IMD 2025 data

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The 2025 IMD data updates the previous datasets from 2019 and 2015. ��This link allows you to compare data in an area from the 2019 and 2015 IMD.

For the LSOA of your school and home, how does the relative deprivation of the area change from 2015 to 2019 to 2025?
How does this link to your study of this place? Has there been any regeneration or wider change to the area which can help to explain this change (either a positive or negative change)?

Activity

Click here to explore the 2019 compared to 2015 IMD mapping resources. Use them to explore the past relative deprivation of:

the LSOA that contains your school
the LSOA that contains your home or another family members home
the different places that you have studied in the Changing Places topic.

Exploring the English IMD 2025 data

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English IMD 2025: key findings

82% of the neighbourhoods that were in the ‘most deprived’ category in 2025 were also the most deprived according to the 2019 data.

Does this surprise you? If so, why? If not, why not? �

Middlesbrough, Birmingham, Hartlepool, Kingston upon Hull and Manchester are the local authorities with the highest proportions of ‘most deprived’ areas in the UK.

How does this link to deindustrialisation and the spiral of decline that you will study about in globalisation? �

Two London boroughs (Tower Hamlets and Hackney) rank as the most deprived regarding income deprivation among children. Alongside Newham, Islington and Southwark, these 5 London boroughs rank as the most deprived regarding income deprivation among older people.

Does this surprise you? If so, why? If not, why not?

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The list on the right shows the top 10 most deprived LSOAs in 2025.

The most deprived neighbourhood in England is to the east of the Jaywick area of Clacton on Sea. Click here to read more about these areas and here and here for an article about how Jaywick became so deprived.

IMD 2025 key findings: the most deprived LSOAs

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Why is it important that the IMD is a relative measure? What does this mean?
Why does this make the IMD a powerful tool to use?
What problems does this present for using the IMD?
Use the table to help you answer these questions.

Using the IMD

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Think about the answers to the following questions:

When the IMD is published, it uses the most up-to-date data at the time. However, for the IMD 2025, lots of the data is from March 2024.

Why is this a problem if using the IMD to measure the success of regeneration?

It is common to describe an area by saying whether it falls among the most deprived 10%, 20% or 30% of small areas in England. There is no definitive cut-off at which an area is described as ‘deprived’.

Why is this a problem for determining the need for regeneration?

Using the IMD in the context of regeneration

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Read about London’s performance in this London Datastore article. �

Think about:

how deprived London is relative to the rest of the country
what the spatial pattern of deprivation is across London
which areas are now less deprived than they were in 2015 compared to areas that are now more deprived
if you have studied areas in London, how they performed in the 2019 index. �

London’s performance in the 2025 IMD

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Taking it further

In the age of instant data online, do we still need the IMD?

How has IMD data been used in the past?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the IMD to allocate government funding?
Which of the limitations of the IMD given in this article is the most significant and why?

Although this article is a few years old now, it makes an important argument for why the IMD is still needed. Read it and add to your notes about the value of the IMD.

Reflection

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Glossary

Deprivation: lacking the resources considered to be the necessities for living in a society.
Domains: parts or components of something such as the IMD.
Index of Multiple Deprivation: a measure used by the Government to show how deprived an area is compared to the rest of the country.
Inequality: the state of not being equal. Inequality exists in a place if people have different levels of access to resources such as housing, income and public services.
Lower-layer super output area (LSOA): an small area of the country that has an average population of 1500.
Relative: compared to somewhere (or someone) else.