The Index of Multiple Deprivation is a government statistic calculated by the Office of National Statistics every five years or so, and 2025's data has just been released.
The whole of England is divided up into 33755 areas, each containing about 1500 residents. Each area is given a deprivation score based on factors including income, employment, health, education and crime. All 33755 areas are then ranked. Jaywick in Essex comes out top because it's the most deprived area in the country, and Harpenden in Herts comes bottom. That ordered list is then divided into 10 equal groups (or deciles), each containing about 3375 areas. 1 is the most deprived decile and 10 is the least. Not everyone who lives in decile 1 is poor, and not everyone who lives in decile 10 is rich, but that's how their area averages out. You can check the deprivation where you live in this BBC news article, and gov.uk has a drillable map here.
Here's a map of Tower Hamlets with areas coloured according to decile. The dark red areas like Bromley-by-Bow, Poplar and Shadwell are the most deprived (1), and the dark blue area in Wapping is the least deprived (10). The borough is very mixed, with much urban poverty but also some riverside affluence.
Across England there are an equal number of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s, 7s, 8s, 9s and 10s, because that's how deciles work.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
10%
But across London the spread is somewhat different.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
4%
14%
17%
14%
12%
9%
9%
8%
7%
6%
Deciles 6 and 7 occur in proportions very close to the national average. But London has more 2s, 3s and 4s than expected (that's the not-particularly well off). It also has fewer 9s and 10s and a lot fewer 1s (because the extremes aren't as abundant).
I did a full borough breakdown last time such figures were published in 2019 so won't drill down again. This time I thought I'd try something different and identify London's most deprived and least deprived areas, then visit both.
I'm not sure where I was expecting to end up. Maybe Newham or Barking for the most deprived and Kensington or Richmond for the least. Instead I ended up in two seemingly unremarkable neighbourhoods in northwest London, seven miles apart, which you won't be expecting either.
The most deprived area in London: Brent 021B (nationally 238th out of 33755)
Shuffle all of London's 4994 Lower Layer Super Output Areas into order and the most deprived is in Neasden, just off the North Circular. The irregular wedge includes Brent Park Tesco and also IKEA, which may have multiple bedrooms but nobody lives in them so they don't count. Instead the data refers to a chain of disjoint streets beside the Dudding Hill freight line, a true mix of housing styles from Victorian terraces to postwar infill. It doesn't help that one end merges into a scrappy trading estate, nor that London's second largest power station looms over the other.
This is Taylors Lane Power Station, a gas powered hulk with two tall concrete chimneys, built to replace a coal-fired belcher which helps explain the shabby workers terraces opposite. They're by no means the worst London has to offer, just poorly sited, some stoneclad and some pebbledashed with just enough room out front for a couple of bins. At the end of of the road is Energen Close, built on the site of the famous bread roll factory, also the location of a nasty shooting in 2020. Bridge Road has bigger gardens and street trees, also a rebuilt primary school, but also haunted-looking passers-by in shabby anoraks. And beyond that is Woodhayes Road, a wall of scrappy two-up two-downs which backs onto a canal feeder, as shown here complete with rotting discarded mattress.
I've seen worse, I thought, as I squeezed past a Lime bike and weaved through an alleyway between two sets of allotments. On the far side was Yeats Close, a Beckton-ish backwater of 1980s townhouses, all of a decent size and with parking for Audis, Qashqais and BMWs as well as other lesser vehicles. The Hallowe'en decorations, where families had bothered, were well up to standard. Only round the last bend did the white van count suddenly increase to epidemic proportions, all unbranded, also trucks overflowing with trash and a couple of discarded fridges.
And here we find the Lynton Close Traveller site, opened in 1996 with 31 caravan pitches but currently with 74 crammed in, which Brent council recently decreed a fire risk so threatened widespread eviction. They've since withdrawn that threat, having decided that adding fire alarms would help, but far more families live here than was ever intended. I doubt the Travellers consider themselves deprived but the underlying statistics have a different view, and I suspect this is why an otherwise merely-lowly patch of Neasden finds itself London's sole representative on a list of England's 1%-most-deprived.
The least deprived area in London: Harrow 004D (nationally 33700th out of 33755)
Nowhere in the supposedly posh parts of inner London registers in the upper echelon of the 10s. The runners up in the spreadsheet are all in quietly genteel parts of outer London, for example Upminster, Eastcote, Hayes or Coombe. But by this measure the least deprived neighbourhood in the whole of the capital is, unexpectedly, a cluster of streets to the north of the shops in Hatch End. The only reason you'd have been here, unless it's home, is that the walking route from the London Loop to Hatch End station passes down Grimsdyke Avenue.
These are characterful 1930s houses, not Metro-land style because we're on the wrong line but big and bricky with rustic gables. Garages are built in, Volvos are parked outside anyway, and along the avenue pine cones drop abundantly onto broad verges. But these are still technically semis, even if neighbours are a good distance apart, and I didn't see a single Waitrose vehicle only Tesco. Also being un-deprived doesn't mean no problems, as I noted when a man in a white protective suit emerged from building works at a house on Hallam Gardens and entered the back of an asbestos removal trailer. If this is truly London's best-off area, where are all the detacheds?
They were a bit further back on streets not added until the 1960s, where large townhouses have broader frontage and less shrubbery. The sparsest are on Scot Grove, a loopy cul-de-sac with a central lawn I wanted to cut across but was warned off by a snobby sign saying 'Private Green, Please Keep To The Road'. I walked around for almost half an hour impressed by the unbroken niceness of it all but still unconvinced that Harrow 004D deserved its abundant crown. Again it must be down to the arbitrary borders of the statistical unit, also the fact that the Index of Multiple Deprivation isn't all about wealth and status. The least deprived areas aren't necessarily where you'd think they are, they're cosy suburban avenues rather than posh gated boltholes.
