Living environment deprivation across London neighbourhoods

Last updated: February 2025
Next update: January 2026 (TBC)

What does this indicator show?

This indicator shows the level of ‘living environment’ deprivation in London’s neighbourhoods. This means the quality of both the local outdoor environment - such as air quality - as well the indoor environment - such as the quality of housing.

It uses the English Indices of Deprivation, which gives each neighbourhood an overall deprivation score. It does this by combining data from seven areas known as domains, one of which is ‘Living environment deprivation’.

For this indicator, we have excluded all non-London neighbourhoods and divided them into five equal groups - known as quintiles. This allows us to quickly see which areas of London face the most severe living environment deprivation. Darker neighbourhoods face the most severe, lighter neighbourhoods the least.

What does it tell us?

There is a clear divide between inner and outer London. Many of the neighbourhoods with the most severe living environment deprivation are in the centre of the city. And by contrast, there are large pockets of the least living environment deprived neighbourhoods in Outer London.

However, in the far north of the city there are pockets of neighbourhoods with higher levels of living environment deprivation, especially in the east of Enfield. The same is true in the far West of London, in Hillingdon.