Townsend Deprivation Index (2011)

Townsend Deprivation Index (2011)#

Last modified: 14 Nov 2025

UK LLC provides a 2011 version of the Townsend Deprivation Index for England and Wales at the Census Output Area level.
More information about this dataset is available here.

Townsend Index#

The Townsend index (1989) is a relative indicator of material deprivation, which has been widely used to identify socio‐economic confounding in crime, education, and health research in England. This dataset is a 2011 version of the Townsend Index, created at the UK Data Service.

1. Summary#

townsend_2011_england_wales

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Dataset Descriptor Dataset-specific Information
Name of Dataset in TRE PLACE_townsend_2011_england_wales
Citation (APA) Office for National Statistics; National Records of Scotland; Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency; UK Data Service.. (2025). Place based data: Townsend Index (2011) England Wales. UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC). https://doi.org/10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00473-01
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Owner UK Data Service
Authors Sanah Yousaf and Amy Bonsall (UK Data Service)
Temporal Coverage 01/2011 - 12/2011
Geographical Coverage England and Wales
Participant Count None
Number of Variables 4
Number of Observations 34753
Key Link http://dx.doi.org/10.5257/census/aggregate-2011-2
Keywords townsend,index,deprivation
Latest Extract Date TBC
Specific Restrictions to Data Use None
Build a Data Request https://explore.ukllc.ac.uk/

townsend_2011_scotland

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Dataset Descriptor Dataset-specific Information
Name of Dataset in TRE PLACE_townsend_2011_scotland
Citation (APA) Office for National Statistics; National Records of Scotland; Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency; UK Data Service.. (2025). Place based data: Townsend Index (2011) Scotland. UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC). https://doi.org/10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00474-01
Download Citation Citeproc JSON     BibTeX     RIS
Owner UK Data Service
Authors Sanah Yousaf and Amy Bonsall (UK Data Service)
Temporal Coverage 01/2011 - 12/2011
Geographical Coverage Scotland
Participant Count None
Number of Variables 4
Number of Observations 6976
Key Link http://dx.doi.org/10.5257/census/aggregate-2011-2
Keywords townsend,index,deprivation
Latest Extract Date TBC
Specific Restrictions to Data Use None
Build a Data Request https://explore.ukllc.ac.uk/

townsend_2011_northern_ireland

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Dataset Descriptor Dataset-specific Information
Name of Dataset in TRE PLACE_townsend_2011_northern_ireland
Citation (APA) Office for National Statistics; National Records of Scotland; Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency; UK Data Service.. (2025). Place based data: Townsend Index (2011) Northern Ireland. UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC). https://doi.org/10.71760/ukllc-dataset-00475-01
Download Citation Citeproc JSON     BibTeX     RIS
Owner UK Data Service
Authors Sanah Yousaf and Amy Bonsall (UK Data Service)
Temporal Coverage 01/2011 - 12/2011
Geographical Coverage Northern Ireland
Participant Count None
Number of Variables 4
Number of Observations 890
Key Link http://dx.doi.org/10.5257/census/aggregate-2011-2
Keywords townsend,index,deprivation
Latest Extract Date TBC
Specific Restrictions to Data Use None
Build a Data Request https://explore.ukllc.ac.uk/

2. Variables#

townsend_2011_england_wales

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Variable Group Variable Description Source Date range of data
Geography lsoa11cd_e None Office of National Statistics 2011
Deprivation townsend_index_2011 The 'Townsend index' converted into quintiles (5 classes). Quintile 1 represents 20% of the LSOA communities that were considered the least deprived in 2011. UK Data Service 2011
Geography rgn11nm Devolved nation within the United Kingdom: Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and English Regions Office of National Statistics 2011
UK LLC avail_from_dt None UK LLC None

townsend_2011_scotland

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Variable Group Variable Description Source Date range of data
Geography dz11cd_e None gov.scot 2011
Deprivation townsend_index_2011 The 'Townsend index' converted into quintiles (5 classes). Quintile 1 represents 20% of the DZ communities that were considered the least deprived in 2011. UK Data Service 2011
Geography rgn11nm Devolved nation within the United Kingdom: Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and English Regions Office of National Statistics 2011
UK LLC avail_from_dt None UK LLC None

townsend_2011_northern_ireland

Hide Information
Variable Group Variable Description Source Date range of data
Geography soa11cd_e None Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency 2011
Deprivation townsend_index_2011 The 'Townsend index' converted into quintiles (5 classes). Quintile 1 represents 20% of the SOA communities that were considered the least deprived in 2011. UK Data Service 2011
Geography rgn11nm Devolved nation within the United Kingdom: Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and English Regions Office of National Statistics 2011
UK LLC avail_from_dt None UK LLC None

3. Metrics#

TBC

4. Version History#

TBC

5. Documentation#

We are currently building a documentation storage system which will host useful documents related to datasets and data owners. We will surface these documents on Guidebook.

6. Useful Syntax#

Below we will include syntax that may be helpful to other researchers in the UK LLC TRE. For longer scripts, we will include a snippet of the code plus a link to the UK LLC GitHub repository where you can find the full scripts.