Portsmouth · Poverty and deprivation · part of Living standards
The short answer
Neighbourhoods in England's most deprived 10% in Portsmouth: 12% (IoD2025), 2 percentage points higher than England (10%).
What share of Portsmouth's neighbourhoods are among the most deprived 10% in England on the 2025 Index of Multiple Deprivation?
Official statistics
| Period | Portsmouth | Southampton | Chichester | Winchester | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IoD2025 | 12% | 11.8% | 0% | 0% | 10% |
Definition: Share of 2021 Lower layer Super Output Areas in the area whose 2025 Index of Multiple Deprivation rank puts them in decile 1 for England (1 = most deprived). Counted from the published LSOA deciles in File 1. Ward values use the ONS best-fit LSOA (2021) to ward (May 2024) lookup: each neighbourhood counts wholly in one ward.
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government: English indices of deprivation 2025: File 1, Index of Multiple Deprivation (LSOA ranks and deciles) ↗ · retrieved 2026-11-09
The Index of Multiple Deprivation ranks neighbourhoods against each other. MHCLG says it cannot measure absolute change over time, and a neighbourhood ranked 100th is not twice as deprived as one ranked 200th. If Portsmouth moves up or down the table, that can be because other places changed, not Portsmouth.
The income, employment, children's and older people's income scores are actual shares of people (a score of 0.21 means 21% of people aged 60 and over are income deprived). The overall index score is not a share of anyone.
Under Universal Credit a wider group of people must look for work than under Jobseeker's Allowance. DWP says this pushes the claimant count up, and ONS has said the count is no longer a reliable economic indicator on its own. That is why the pre-2013 and post-2013 lines are kept apart.
DWP moved Southampton's jobcentre to the full Universal Credit service in February 2017 and Portsmouth's and Cosham's in September 2018. Until then only simpler claims went onto Universal Credit, so for those years Portsmouth's lower Universal Credit numbers reflect the timetable, not less need.
Under the current definition a household is only counted as fuel poor if its home is rated energy efficiency band D or below. DESNZ estimates for councils are modelled and should be used for broad patterns, not detailed trends; below council level they are not robust.
Trussell counts parcels from its own food banks, by where they are given out. Hundreds of independent food banks are not included, so a low or zero figure can mean there is no Trussell food bank nearby rather than low need.
The Household Support Fund has been followed by the Crisis and Resilience Fund, government money given to councils from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2029 to help low-income households in financial crisis. Portsmouth City Council runs crisis payments under it.
| Ward | Value |
|---|---|
| Charles Dickens | 72.7% |
| Paulsgrove | 33.3% |
| Nelson | 20% |
| Fratton | 11.1% |
| St Thomas | 11.1% |
| Baffins | 0% |
| Central Southsea | 0% |
| Copnor | 0% |
| Cosham | 0% |
| Drayton and Farlington | 0% |
| Eastney and Craneswater | 0% |
| Hilsea | 0% |
| Milton | 0% |
| St Jude | 0% |
What’s being done about this: Keeping warm: energy costs and fuel poverty → · Affording food: food banks and food insecurity → · Making ends meet: income and everyday costs →
Official commitments only, with their status from dated evidence. A completed action is not proof the figures above improved.
See what could change in Portsmouth → · Your councillors and MPs →
These figures would help residents but are not published for Portsmouth in a form we can check and refresh automatically.
Comparison places are chosen automatically: the three nearest official cities, and the three most similar cities in the ONS area classification (cities whose council areas have a similar population make-up), plus England. Where a measure is only published for whole counties, cities inside a county are left out rather than replaced by the county.
Figures are fetched by a script from the official source and shown unchanged. Comparisons use the same definition and period for every place. Rates and shares change in percentage points; counts and levels change in per cent. An increase is not automatically good or bad.
The retained source collection contains 0 records for this topic, including comparison areas and older releases. Each record keeps its own period and source date. Current findings above may use newer releases; a later page update does not refresh every record.
