Young adults

The attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students is lower in Inner London than in Outer London and lower in Outer London than it is in the rest of England. 

In Inner London in 2021/22, 19 year olds who were eligible for Free School Meals at the end of Key Stage 4 were 12.4 percentage points less likely to have gained Level 3 qualifications (equivalent to A levels) than their peers who were not eligible for Free School Meals. In Outer London the figure was 19.5 percentage points and in the rest of England it was 28.1 percentage points.

Looking over the past decade, the attainment gap has remained fairly consistent, with Inner London always having a smaller gap than Outer London or the rest of England. Based on this data alone, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negligible impact on the attainment gap.

Although a ma…

30% of young people completing KS5 (post-GCSE qualifications) in London in 2021/22 were classed as disadvantaged, compared to 19% in the rest of England.

In London, the most common destination was higher education, with similar numbers of disadvantaged (54%) and non-disadvantaged (57%) students going to university. This is very different from the rest of England, where a lower proportion of people attend higher education overall, and the gap between disadvantaged (30%) and non-disadvantaged (44%) students is much greater.

In London, disadvantaged young people are less likely to enter work (15%, compared to 25% in the rest of England) or begin an apprenticeship (3%, compared to 7% in the rest of England).

Pupils are classified as disadvantaged in Year 11 if they are either eligible for free school meals in the last 6 years or were looked aft…

In 2021/22, the majority of London’s KS5 school leavers of both disadvantaged (80%) and non-disadvantaged (86%) backgrounds had Level 3 qualifications (e.g. A-levels).

This is in contrast to the rest of England. A slightly lower proportion (84%) of non-disadvantaged KS5 school leavers had Level 3 qualifications, while only 67% of disadvantaged KS5 school leavers had a Level 3 qualification.

According to the Department for Education, students are considered disadvantaged in Year 11 and attract pupil premium funding if they are eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years, have been looked after by the local authority, or have been adopted from care.

This indicator shows the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving either Inner and Outer London, by different age groups. A negative number shows that there are more people leaving than arriving.

The latest mid-year figures (the year up to June 2020) show that Inner London experienced the largest net inflows of those aged between 20 and 24 –  with a net inflow of 15,950 people. However, when compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019,  this is almost 10,000 fewer people. Additionally, the next highest inflow levels were for those aged between 25 and 29 in Inner London –  with a net of 5,578 people in 2020. However, this is less than half of the people in comparison to pre-pandemic levels in 2019 (12,107 people).

Outer London saw a net inflow of those aged between 20 and 24 (9,463 similar to the previous year’s 9,360 people…

The number of people sleeping rough in London more than tripled between 2008/09 and 2020/21 from around 3,472 to 11,018. 2021/22 saw the number fall back somewhat to 8,329 but it increased again in 2022/23 to 10,053.

Most people sleeping rough are white, although across the time series the number of BAME people sleeping rough has risen faster than the number of white people. Of the people whose country/continent of origin is known, just under half are British citizens, with people from the rest of Europe making up most of the rest. A large majority (83%) of people sleeping rough in London are men.

More people sleep rough in Central London than in any other part of the capital. This is consistently the case, but the proportion of people sleeping rough who do so in Central London reducing over the 15 year period from more than three quarters…

People with higher qualification levels are less likely to live in poverty. In London, 36% of people with less than 5 GCSEs and equivalent as their highest qualifications were in poverty. This compares to 21% of people with 5 GCSEs or higher as their highest qualifications.

As with other poverty indicators, poverty rates are greater in London than the rest of England for both people with and without GCSEs. In fact, poverty rates in London for those with 5 GCSEs or higher are only three percentage points lower than for those with low qualifications in the rest of England.

Poverty rates after housing costs were highest among children and young people in 2021/22, in both London and the rest of England.

In London:

• 160,000 children aged four and under live in households in poverty
• Almost a third (34%) of children aged 5-9 are in households in poverty
• Over a third of 10-19 year olds live in households that are in poverty (38% of those aged 10-14 and 34% of those aged 15-19).

In contrast, 17% of Londoners aged 30-34 live in households that are in poverty - the lowest rate for any age group.

Poverty rates in London are higher than those in the rest of England for people of most age groups, except for children aged 0-4 and adults aged 30-39 and 60-64.

The impacts of housing costs on poverty in the capital can again be seen by comparing these findings to those from measures of poverty before housing costs (BHC). Poverty …

There is a large variation between London boroughs in terms of the proportion of the working-age population that have degree-level or above qualifications. Lambeth has the highest proportion (71%) of its working-age population with degree-level or above qualifications, whilst Barking and Dagenham has the lowest (26%). In addition, this borough also has the highest proportion of people without any formal qualifications - just over 1 in 10 of the working population in Barking and Dagenham (12%).

Not all boroughs are represented within this chart due to small sample size suppressions in the source data. Further details can be found in the downloadable CSV file.

Ofsted ratings are given to schools by inspectors and range from “Inadequate” to “Outstanding”. Ratings are based on a range of observations about a school's performance.

This indicator shows that, on average, the better a school’s Ofsted rating is, the less deprived a neighbourhood it tends to be located in.

While this is true across the country, the relationship is less pronounced in London than in the rest of England. This means that children in London who live in deprived neighbourhoods are more likely to have a school with a good Ofsted rating in their neighbourhood than those living in deprived neighbourhoods in the rest of the country.

This is particularly true for London secondary schools, where there is not a clear relationship between schools’ Ofsted rating and the deprivation of the neighbourhood in which they are located, i…

More than one in five people living in Inner London (23.1%) are aged between 25 and 34. This compares to just 12.7% of those in the rest of England. More broadly, in Inner London, almost half the population is made up out of those who are in their early twenties to early forties (47.2%), compared to the rest of England where three in 10 (31.1%) are in this age group, and Inner London is home to a higher proportion of young people than Outer London.

This is caused by people moving to Inner London for work early in their careers and then leaving as they start families. The largest five-year age band is 25 to 29 year olds in Inner London, 35 to 39 year olds in Outer London and 50 to 54 year olds in the rest of England. A relatively small proportion of London’s population is over 65; 9.4% in Inner London and 13.6% in Outer London compared to …

The unemployment rate* in London for those aged 16–24 increased by 2.1 percentage points in the year to September 2023, rising to 16.3%. Excluding the COVID-19 pandemic affecting 2021, this is the highest rate since 2016.

By contrast unemployment for those aged 25–64 is significantly lower and saw just a small increase from 3.5% in 2022 to 3.8% in 2023.

Unemployment for people aged 65 and over was comparable to people aged 25–64 for the most recently available data (low survey response numbers mean we can’t report for 2022 or 2023). However, relatively few in this group are either in work or seeking work, as the majority are retired.

Unemployment rates among the working age population (16-64) are higher in London than in the rest of England, which has been true for the whole time period covered by this indicator.

Compared to other age groups…