Deep dive
Where is deprivation in Wales, and who decides?
Wales ranks its 1,917 neighbourhoods from most to least deprived. Here is why, how the ranking is built, how England and Scotland do it differently, and what moves if you set the points yourself.
29 Oct 2026 · Report explained: Welsh Government, Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025, released 27 November 2025
- Ink is the publisher's own figure, as printed.
- Pencil is our working, always shown beside it.
Main points
- The Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025 ranks Wales’s 1,917 small areas from most to least deprived (Welsh Government, published 27 November 2025).
- Cardiff has 37 of the 191 most deprived, more than any other council.
- In Blaenau Gwent, 20% of neighbourhoods are among Wales’s most deprived 10%, the highest share of any council.
- Monmouthshire has none among the most deprived 10%.
I · Why Wales measures deprivation
“WIMD is the official measure of relative deprivation for small areas in Wales. It is designed to identify those small areas where there are the highest concentrations of several different types of deprivation. WIMD 2025 was published on 27 November 2025.”
Deprived here means more than poor. In the Welsh Government’s words, “Being deprived does not just mean being poor, it can also mean having fewer resources and opportunities than we might expect in our society, for example in terms of health, education or access to services.” Two places with the same incomes can be very different places to live.
So Wales is looked at in 1,917 small pieces, called lower layer super output areas. “Following the 2021 Census, 1,917 LSOAs were defined in Wales, and they have an average population of 1,600.” A council can hold streets that are well off and streets that are struggling, and one figure for the whole council hides both. Small pieces show them apart.
The index ranks every piece from most to least deprived. It says which areas are more deprived than others, not by how much. It is an accredited official statistic produced by statisticians at the Welsh Government.
It exists to be used. “The purpose of the index is to provide evidence about the most deprived areas of Wales to inform a variety of decisions and research, including funding or targeting of programmes and services for local areas.” Chapter IV shows some of the ways.
II · How the index is built
The index looks at eight kinds of deprivation, which it calls domains, drawn from 54 underlying indicator datasets. Each domain ranks all 1,917 areas on its own. Then the eight are added together, each counting for a set number of points out of 100.
- Income 22 points
- Aims “to measure the proportion of people experiencing deprivation relating to low income.”
- Employment 20 points
- Aims “to measure the proportion of working-age people involuntarily excluded from the labour market.”
- Health 15 points
- Aims “to measure lack of good health in all people, and to capture predictors of future health based on deprivation experienced in childhood.”
- Education 14 points
- Aims “to capture the extent of deprivation relating to education, training and skills.”
- Access to services 10 points
- Aims to capture a household’s “inability to access a range of services considered necessary for day-to-day living, both physically and online.”
- Housing 9 points
- Aims “to identify inadequate housing, in terms of physical and living conditions and availability.”
- Community safety 5 points
- Aims “to measure the proportion of people experiencing deprivation relating to living in a safe community.”
- Physical environment 5 points
- Aims “to measure factors in the local area that may impact on the wellbeing or quality of life of those living in an area.”
Before adding up, each domain’s ranking is stretched so that the most deprived places count for much more than the rest. In the Welsh Government’s words, this “reduces the extent to which deprivation in some domains can be cancelled by lack of deprivation in others.”
Its technical report gives an example. An area worst on one domain and best on another “would have a combined score of 50 and would thus be ranked at the 90th percentile. Averaging the untransformed ranks, or after transformation to a normal distribution, would result in such a LSOA being ranked at the 50th percentile”, where a plain average would have put it.
The points are a choice. “Their values are based upon expert advice and the quality of the indicators available.” The Welsh Government publishes every area’s score on every domain so that, as it puts it, “users can experiment with different weighting systems for the Index”. Its guidance spells it out: “The weights can be adjusted to place lower or higher weight on a given domain, or to reduce its weight entirely to zero. A new weighted sum of the domain scores can then be calculated to provide adjusted index scores and ranks.” So try it.
Or click a neighbourhood on the map.
Loading every neighbourhood’s figures…
III · Where deprivation is
The Welsh Government prints, for every council, how many of its neighbourhoods fall among Wales’s most deprived. A big council can hold the most deprived neighbourhoods by number while a small one has the largest share, so the chart shows both. Pick a domain to see where one kind of deprivation sits.
- 20% 9 of 46
- 18% 18 of 100
- 17% 37 of 218
- 17% 6 of 36
- 17% 15 of 90
- 13% 20 of 150
- 13% 20 of 153
- 12% 7 of 58
- 11% 12 of 110
- 9% 7 of 82
- 8% 5 of 60
- 7% 6 of 91
- 6% 4 of 71
- 6% 4 of 71
- 5% 5 of 92
- 5% 2 of 41
- 5% 4 of 84
- 5% 5 of 111
- 4% 3 of 71
- 2% 1 of 45
- 1% 1 of 79
- 0% 0 of 58
Welsh Government, Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2025 local authority deprivation profiles · Released: 27 November 2025 · Click a council to see its neighbourhoods on the maps above.
Every neighbourhood counts once
On a normal map, big rural neighbourhoods take up most of the space and busy towns almost vanish. Slide to give every neighbourhood the same small square, grouped by council, so you can see how many in each council fall in each band.
IV · What the index is used for
The ranking is used by government bodies, councils, charities, businesses and researchers to decide where to look and where to spend. Some schemes draw a line through it and treat every area inside the line alike. Three examples show how.
- Communities First
- A Welsh Government programme for the most deprived communities. From January 2013 it was delivered by “52 Clusters, based on the 10% most deprived communities in Wales as defined by the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2011”, according to the Welsh Government’s evaluation. It was wound up in 2018, when the minister thanked those who played a role in “the orderly closure of the Communities First Programme”.
- Medr: university and college funding
- Medr, which funds universities and colleges in Wales, pays providers extra for “students from areas of deprivation, as defined by the bottom two quintiles of the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2019 (WIMD19).” Those are the two-fifths of areas ranked most deprived, and the line is still drawn on the 2019 index. A second line follows: “Providers where students from deprived areas represent more than 35 per cent of Welsh-domiciled students are in band 1 and receive a higher premium”.
- Flying Start: help for families with young children
- Here the index is one guide among several. “The programme has been targeted to areas according to measures of relative deprivation including the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD), free school meals and the proportions of children aged under 4 years living in households in receipt of income related benefits.”
A line through a ranking has a cost the Welsh Government states plainly: “nearly 4 out of 5 income deprived people live outside the 10% most deprived areas. This is important to remember when targeting resources.” An area is in or out, and so is everyone living in it, whatever their own circumstances.
And where the line falls depends on the points. Move them in chapter II and watch how each council’s count inside the most deprived 10% changes.
V · Three nations, three indexes
England and Scotland have their own indexes, built on the same idea: rank small areas, look at several kinds of deprivation, stretch and weight them, add them up. But each nation chose its own areas, its own measures and its own points.
| Wales | England | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) | English Indices of Deprivation, including the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) | Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) |
| Made by | Welsh Government | Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government | Scottish Government |
| Latest edition | 2025, released 27 November 2025 | 2025, released 30 October 2025 | 2020, published 28 January 2020; it says “SIMD 2020v2 ranks should now be used when carrying out any analyses.” |
| Small areas | “Following the 2021 Census, 1,917 LSOAs were defined in Wales, and they have an average population of 1,600.” | “33,755 small areas (Lower-layer Super Output Areas) in England, with an average population of 1,500.” | “6,976 small areas (called data zones)” |
| Kinds of deprivation and their weights | Income 22%, Employment 20%, Health 15%, Education 14%, Access to services 10%, Housing 9%, Community safety 5%, Physical environment 5% | “Income Deprivation (22.5%), Employment Deprivation (22.5%), Education, Skills and Training Deprivation (13.5%), Health Deprivation and Disability (13.5%), Crime (9.3%), Barriers to Housing and Services (9.3%), Living Environment Deprivation (9.3%).” | Income 28%, Employment 28%, Health 14%, Education, skills and training 14%, Geographic access to services 9%, Crime 5%, Housing 2% |
| Status | An accredited official statistic | “Accredited Official Statistics.” | Not stated on the pages read |
Sources: Welsh Government, WIMD 2025 guidance and results report; MHCLG, English indices of deprivation 2025: statistical release; Scottish Government, SIMD collection and SIMD 2020 technical notes.
Scotland gives more weight to income and work than Wales does, and much less to housing. England spreads its points more evenly. Scotland’s next edition is due on new data zones: “We currently anticipate publishing in the latter part of 2026 in order to incorporate data using the 2022 Census data zones.” The domain weighting used for SIMD 2020 remains the same as in SIMD16.
The Welsh Government gives four reasons the three cannot be compared directly:
- “They are produced for different geographies (there is no suitable small area geography which is consistent across the four nations).”
- “There are differences between the indicators, and not all data are collected consistently across the UK (for example, the education systems are different from Wales, so some education indicators are not comparable).”
- “The indexes have developed according to the policy drivers in each of the countries (as devolution of UK constituent countries has evolved, these differences have grown).”
- “The indices are produced on different timescales so they do not tend to refer to the same year of data across the UK”
England says the same: its indices “should not be directly compared with those from the Indices produced in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.” So this page never sets an English or Scottish area beside a Welsh one. A UK-wide version is being worked on. “This includes sourcing data which will enable the publication of UK-wide products. Release plans are yet to be confirmed but will be announced on GOV.UK in due course.”
What this doesn't tell you
- It ranks areas, not people. Not everyone in a deprived area is deprived, and many deprived people live in areas that are not.
- There is no official line. The guidance says there is no definitive threshold above which an area is described as deprived. The 10% and 20% groups are a convention, not a definition.
- A rank is not an amount. The Welsh Government says the scores “do not represent a level of multiple deprivation (for example, if area A has twice the score of area B, this does not necessarily mean that area A is twice as deprived as area B)”.
- It cannot be averaged up to a council. In the Welsh Government’s words, “It is not valid to aggregate the scores to larger geographies by taking an average of the values for the small areas. This is because of the way in which the Index is constructed”. That is why the council chart counts neighbourhoods rather than averaging them.
- 2019 and 2025 are not a trend. “Change in ranks over time may not mean change in absolute deprivation levels (as it is a relative index). A change in rank for an area may be due to other areas moving up or down the ranks, rather than any change in the area itself.” WIMD 2025 also changed some measures and boundaries, so its outputs are not directly comparable to previous indices.
- Your way is not an index. The tool adds up the published scores with your points. It shows what the choice of points does; it is not an official ranking.
How we worked this out
Every published figure on this page is one the Welsh Government printed, read from the file named below at a recorded position. The council chart and the official map draw those figures as printed.
Our estimate adds up each neighbourhood’s eight published domain scores, each multiplied by your points, then ranks all 1,917 totals. With the Welsh Government’s own points this gives every neighbourhood exactly its published rank, which our tests check on every build. Bands use the Welsh Government’s own cut-offs: the most deprived 10% is ranks 1 to 191.
Sources
| Source | Reference | Released | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
Welsh Government WIMD 2025 index and domain ranks by small area The Welsh Government’s definition of WIMD and its decile key; read from wimd-2025-index-and-domain-ranks-by-small-area.ods (sha256 755870f8a82f…) on 2026-10-29 | WIMD 2025: 1,917 lower layer super output areas (2021 boundaries) | 27 November 2025 | Dataset Data file |
Welsh Government WIMD 2025 index and domain scores by small area The Welsh Government’s own account of how the scores are made, what they are for and what they cannot be used for; read from wimd-2025-index-and-domain-scores-by-small-area.ods (sha256 fea4c483c261…) on 2026-10-29 | WIMD 2025: 1,917 lower layer super output areas (2021 boundaries) | 11 December 2025 | Dataset Data file |
Welsh Government Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2025 local authority deprivation profiles Each council’s count and share of its neighbourhoods in Wales’s most deprived 10%, 20%, 30% and 50%, overall and in each domain; read from download.csv (sha256 46dc33c5cbc5…) on 2026-10-29 | WIMD 2025, by local authority | 27 November 2025 | Dataset Data file |
Welsh Government Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2025: guidance The eight domain weights, the average size of an area, re-weighting, the limits of a line through the ranking, and the reasons the UK’s indexes cannot be compared; read from welsh-index-multiple-deprivation-wimd-2025-guidance-html (sha256 96fb689e7ce3…) on 2026-10-29 | WIMD 2025 | 27 November 2025 | Source |
Welsh Government Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2025 results report The purpose of the index, its status, its 54 datasets and what each domain is for; read from print (sha256 4529d0d13f94…) on 2026-10-29 | WIMD 2025 | 27 November 2025 | Source |
Welsh Government Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) 2025 technical report Why the weights are what they are, and the worked example of the stretched scores; read from print (sha256 772cc23a5b76…) on 2026-10-29 | WIMD 2025 | 11 December 2025 | Source |
Welsh Government Flying Start: quality report How Flying Start areas are chosen; read from flying-start-quality-report-html (sha256 2ec912047bf2…) on 2026-10-29 | Flying Start | 12 November 2024 | Source |
Medr Medr’s investment for academic year 2026/27 (Medr/2026/16) How Medr’s premium for students from deprived areas is drawn; read from M2026_16-Medr-investment-for-academic-year-2026_27-English.pdf (sha256 382176b7eb4b…) on 2026-10-29 | Academic year 2026/27 | 13 May 2026 | Source |
Welsh Government Social Research Process evaluation of Communities First, Appendix 1: Theory of Change How Communities First’s clusters were drawn from 2013; read from 150226-communities-first-process-evaluation-appendix1-en.pdf (sha256 6966d562e41b…) on 2026-10-29 | Communities First from January 2013 | 26 February 2015 | Source |
Welsh Government Written Statement: Closure of the Communities First Programme The closure of Communities First; read from written-statement-closure-communities-first-programme (sha256 e5fbc41e7e91…) on 2026-10-29 | Communities First | 19 April 2018 | Source |
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government English indices of deprivation 2025: statistical release England’s small areas, weights, status and its own warning against comparison; read from english-indices-of-deprivation-2025-statistical-release (sha256 7aaf3de1dce4…) on 2026-10-29 | English Indices of Deprivation 2025 | 30 October 2025 | Source |
Scottish Government Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation: data and resources Scotland’s data zones, its current edition and its warning about people and areas; read from scottish-index-of-multiple-deprivation-2020 (sha256 d9c09cd7c91b…) on 2026-10-29 | SIMD 2020v2 | 28 January 2020 | Source |
Scottish Government SIMD 2020 technical notes Scotland’s domain weights; read from SIMD+2020+technical+notes.pdf (sha256 c40903464492…) on 2026-10-29 | SIMD 2020 | 20 October 2020 | Dataset Data file |
Scottish Government Our plans to update the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation When Scotland plans its next edition; read from our-plans-to-update-the-scottish-index-of-multiple-deprivation (sha256 96b7f1f77e11…) on 2026-10-29 | The next SIMD | 20 November 2024 | Source |