Towards a Dynamic View of UK Deprivation: Harmonising the IMD Using Claimant Count Data

Under the United Kingdom’s devolution framework, key population datasets have been produced separately by each nation’s statistical authority. The incompatibility of national Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) presents challenges for researchers and policymakers seeking to address inequalities across and between UK nations. This paper proposes a method of harmonising the IMD across the UK by combining national IMD indices with a measure of average monthly claimant counts – a statistic underlying the Employment domain score across national IMD indices in the UK. The paper provides perspective on where national IMD indexes may be obscuring patterns of deprivation in the UK in 2025 at a small-area level