Local Child Poverty Statistics 2025
Local child poverty rates, After Housing Costs
Every year the End Child Poverty Coalition, together with the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, publishes data on the number of children living in poverty, in each Westminster Constituency and Local Authority across the UK.
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- to find out the level of child poverty in your constituency and local authority
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Research Summary
- In 2023/24 national analysis indicates that 4.5 million children (31% of all children) were in relative poverty, and the poverty rate also remains high across the nations and regions.
- Devolved polices such as the Scottish Child Payment have contributed to overall lower levels of poverty across Scotland, as compared to the rest of the UK, although more than one in five children remain in poverty.
- In two-thirds of parliamentary constituencies, at least one in four children are in relative poverty after housing costs.
- Constituencies with the highest levels of child poverty are well above the national average, with over half of all children in these areas living in poverty. This includes Middlesbrough & Thornaby East (52%), Manchester Rusholme (51%), Liverpool Riverside (50%), Dewsbury & Batley (58%), Bradford West (57%), Bradford East (55%), Leeds South (52%), Birmingham Hodge Hill (55%), Birmingham Perry Barr (52%), Birmingham Yardley (51%), Walsall & Bloxwich (51%), Birmingham Hall Green & Moseley (50%), Bethnal Green & Stepney (50%).
- The constituency with the highest level of child poverty is Birmingham Ladywood where a shocking 62% of children live in poverty. Meaning in a classroom of 30 children here, 18 would be living in poverty.
- Constituency-level child poverty rates are directly and strongly correlated with the percentage of children affected by the two-child limit in that local area, providing further evidence that the policy is a key driver of child poverty.
Figure 1 shows that the estimated poverty rate is high across the nations and regions. The West Midlands has the highest levels of child poverty at 36%, meaning just over 1 in 3 children here are growing up in poverty.
Figure 2 shows the percentage of constituencies in each country or region where the child poverty rate is 25% or higher. The estimate for the UK as a whole indicates that in more than two-thirds of constituencies, at least one in four children are in relative poverty after housing costs. The percentages are especially high in the Northern regions of England, the West Midlands and in Wales, where around nine out of 10 constituencies have a child poverty rate higher than 25%. In contrast, in Scotland the prevalence of high rates of child poverty is much lower: only around a third of constituencies have a child poverty rate of 25% or more. This reflects the overall lower rates of child poverty in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK, in part due to devolved policies, such as the Scottish Child Payment, that are targeted at low-income families with the specific aim of reducing child poverty.
Figure 3 looks at the relationship between the 2023/24 child poverty rate and the proportion of children affected by the two-child limit in each constituency. It is clear that the two are extremely highly correlated. This adds to already compelling evidence that the two-child limit is a major driver of child poverty across the UK.
Missing Children
Currently, the data used to estimate child poverty rates do not include those children in households with no recourse to public funds (NRPF). There are estimated to be around 722,064 children affected by NRPF in the UK,[1] and these children are at particularly high risk of being in poverty; evidence suggests that around a third of children living in deepest poverty are in migrant households. Excluding these children from local and national estimates of child poverty is therefore likely to result in an underestimation of the rate of child poverty that is particularly pronounced in areas with a high proportion of NRPF households.
Data going forwards
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has acknowledged the importance of providing After Housing Costs (AHC) child poverty statistics at local level. Work is underway within the DWP to develop an AHC version of CiLIF, informed by our work to date.[2] Meaning that from 2026 the data described in this report will likely be produced by the DWP. We hope these statistics will play a key role in ongoing evaluation of the forthcoming Child Poverty Strategy and will allow more robust analysis of change over time.
A note on how the data should be interpreted
In previous years, the BHC Children in Low Income Families (CiLIF) data were calibrated to the regional child poverty rates from HBAI. However, due to small sample sizes at the regional level in HBAI, this year the DWP has calibrated to the national poverty rate from HBAI. This change in methodology means that users should exercise a high degree of caution when looking at changes over time at a local level. The change also means that there are now two different estimates of BHC regional child poverty. The DWP provides the following guidance on when to use each version:
Users should use HBAI for UK, national and regional level statistics to provide consistent insights for low-income households across children, working age and pensioners, for sub-groups, and for comparisons before and after housing costs
Users should use CiLIF for sub-regional, local and small area comparisons of the number and proportion of children in low income, before housing costs.
[1] Pinter, I. and Leon, L. (2025) Evidence briefing: Poverty among children affected by UK government asylum and immigration policy. CASE/COMPAS working paper. [Available at: https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025-Joint-CASE-COMPAS-Poverty-Among-Children.pdf]
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-in-low-income-families-local-area-statistics-2014-to-2024/children-in-low-income-families-after-housing-costs-consultation-note
