Social mobility by area

Published: 11 September 2024
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Map of UK regions
Composite measures by region
List of UK regions
Indicators by area

This section shows how different areas in the UK are ranked for 4 different measures of social mobility.

Map of UK regions

Please use caution when comparing regions. This is because most regions are near to the average, and there is little difference between them.

Composite measures by region

There are 4 composite measures of social mobility by region:

Each of these measures combines data from multiple indicators into a single ‘composite’ score to give a more reliable picture of geographical patterns.

For each composite measure, 203 regions in the UK are put into 5 groups – from ‘most favourable’ to ‘least favourable’ conditions – based on their composite scores.

These are purely descriptive statistics and cannot demonstrate any causal effects of regions on outcomes. Some of these statistics are based on surveys and are affected by sampling error.

List of UK regions

There are 12 major UK regions shown below, and 203 local authorities in total.

East

East Midlands (England)

London

North East (England)

North West (England)

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Scotland

South East (England)

South West (England)

Wales

West Midlands (England)

Yorkshire and The Humber

Northern Ireland is treated as a single unit. This is because the Labour Force Survey – our main data source – does not distinguish between local authorities in Northern Ireland.

Read our technical annex and main report for more information.

Indicators by area

The following indicators also include geographic data.

In these indicators, data is shown for 41 UK regions made up of counties and groups of counties. Each region has 800,000 to 3 million residents.

Warning
Differences between regions may not be statistically significant. The regional estimates have a large margin of error – do not rank or compare specific regions.