Indicator
Map of child poverty
Published
3 July 2024
Last updated
17 August 2026
Time to read
About 2 mins
About 2 mins
Key points
- In 2024/25, around half of children in Hackney and Tower Hamlets lived in poverty.
- Child poverty was highest in the West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber and London.
- The percentage of children living in poverty remained similar between 2023/24 and 2024/25.
Poverty can affect a person’s health when their financial resources are insufficient to meet their basic living needs, such as adequate heating, appropriate clothing, or adequate nutrition. Living in poverty as a child can affect other determinants of health such as education, which can have a further longer-term impact on health.
This chart shows the percentage of children living in poverty in each local authority in the UK in 2024/25 and the change over time since 2023/24. Since 2021/22 the percentage of children living in poverty has been relatively stable at around 28%.
- The percentage of children living in poverty was highest in the West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber and London. Scotland, Northern Ireland and the South East of England have a lower percentage of children living in poverty.
- In 40 local authorities, at least a third of children were living in poverty in 2024/25. The local authorities with the highest percentage of children living in poverty were Tower Hamlets (50.3%), Hackney (50.1%), Newham (44.9%), Birmingham (44.4%) and Pendle (42.5%).
- There were only three local authorities where less than 10% of children lived in poverty, all in Scotland: East Dunbartonshire (7.8%), East Renfrewshire (8.5%) and the Shetland Islands (9.3%).
- Between 2023/24 and 2024/25, the percentage of children living in poverty remained relatively stable, The percentage point change in children living in poverty ranged from a decrease of 2.5 percentage points (Middlesbrough) to an increase of 3.4 percentage points (City of London). It should be noted that City of London and Isles of Scilly have much smaller populations than other local authorities so may be more susceptible to fluctuations in poverty levels.
- This is the first release of child poverty estimates, after housing costs, at the local authority level. As such it is not possible to comment on longer term trends at the local authority level.
- The number of children in poverty by local authority is estimated using data from RAPID (Registration and Population Interaction Database) which provides a view of citizens' interactions with DWP and HMRC within a tax year for the UK.
- Using data from RAPID, families who have claimed Child Benefit and at least one of Tax Credit, Universal Credit or Housing Benefit are included and considered in poverty if net household income is below 60% of the median in that year.
- The percentage of children living in poverty is calculated by dividing the number of children living in families in poverty (from RAPID) by the number of all children (Office for National Statistics population estimates).
- Income is defined as monthly net equivalised household income after housing costs. Income is equivalised, which means it is adjusted for household size to reflect economies of scale. For example, a household of four needs more income for the same standard of living as a household of one, but not four times as much. Housing costs are deducted from income, to reflect that people with lower incomes in particular have fewer options for meeting their housing costs, relative to their income.
- Children are defined as dependent individuals aged under 16.
