New IMD Acknowledges Challenges Of Measuring Rural Need

The Government has published the English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (IoD 2025) – the seventh update of England’s official measure of multiple deprivation – alongside, for the first time, a dedicated report on deprivation in rural areas.

The Rural Supplementary Report, produced by Deprivation.org and Oxford Consultants for Social Inclusion (OCSI) for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and Defra, examines how deprivation manifests and is measured in rural contexts.

RSN welcomes this inclusion and recognition that deprivation in rural areas can be harder to capture, particularly where disadvantage is dispersed rather than concentrated. This reflects longstanding RSN concerns that conventional indicators may underestimate rural need, an issue at the heart of our Delivering for All campaign, which calls for more accurate rural data and fairer funding formulas.

Enhancements In The 2025 Release

The IoD 2025 introduces a number of refinements in response to feedback from the 2022 Indices Futures consultation, including improvements particularly relevant to rural areas:

• Connectivity and transport: New measures use Department for Transport connectivity tools and road distance metrics to better capture accessibility challenges in rural settings.
• Digital access: A new indicator on average broadband speeds acknowledges the impact of connectivity on opportunity and quality of life.
• Updated spatial methods: Adjustments to small-area data (LSOA) boundaries and shrinkage estimation aim to reduce bias towards more urbanised areas.

These changes represent progress, but the Rural Report itself acknowledges continuing limitations, including the inability to fully reflect factors such as the “rural premium” (higher cost of living and access costs), or lower take-up of benefits linked to self-reliance and stigma in some rural communities.

Hidden Deprivation Remains

RSN analysis of the 2025 dataset shows that 10 out of 12 predominantly rural counties in England contain at least one neighbourhood among the most deprived 10% nationally.

While rural counties overall have a lower proportion of highly deprived areas (4.5% of neighbourhoods compared with the national average of 10%), deprivation is concentrated in specific places, notably coastal, post-industrial and market town areas such as East Lindsey, Great Yarmouth, Barrow-in-Furness and West Somerset.

This dispersed pattern means deprivation is often less visible in aggregate statistics, with funding formulas that rely solely on decile thresholds at risk of underrepresenting rural need.

Looking Ahead

The Rural Report encourages national and local bodies to combine IMD data with local intelligence for more accurate targeting of resources, a message RSN strongly supports.

Without this broader context, rural communities facing high costs, poor transport connectivity and limited service access may be overlooked in national programmes such as the UK Shared Prosperity Fund or the emerging Pride in Place initiatives that draw on composite measures of deprivation.

RSN will continue to engage with government departments and data providers to ensure that metrics, evidence and policy frameworks fairly reflect the realities of rural deprivation and that every community is recognised in the national picture.