Small towns – house prices, earnings and income deprivation

House values by built-up areas (BUAs), follow the expected pattern linked to earnings with those with higher values largely in South East England and East of England.  Outliers in other areas such as Bowdon in Cheshire or Ashley Heath in Dorset tend to be in the more affluent areas. 

 

At the other end of the scale we have BUAs where values are lower with a concentration in North East England, North West England, Wales, Yorkshire & the Humber.  Outliers here are Jaywick in Essex (the most deprived neighbourhood in England according to the Indices of Multiple Deprivation), Launceston in Cornwall in South West England, and Sheerness in South East England.  

 

Income deprivation figures, the best proxy in the data for earnings, provide a clear link with house values.  Lower deprivation predominates amongst the higher value areas and higher deprivation is associated with lower house values.  Of the 140 highest house price BUAs, 129 were in the lower income deprivation category, with 9 in the medium category and 2 in the higher category. Conversely, of the 140 BUAs with lower house values, 132 were in the higher income deprived category with 8 each in the medium and lower categories.  

 

Notes

This article analyses data for 1,395 towns and cities in England and Wales with a population greater than 5,000 people, using the built-up areas (BUAs) 2024 geography. It develops on our previous Understanding towns articles..

To help understand the data, three classifications have been calculated for each town to enable us to group together towns that share some similar characteristics. Two of these classifications were used in previous

Understanding towns articles, namely job density class (working or residential) and income deprivation measures (higher or lower deprivation). Having developed this two-part categorisation, we now include a "nearer" or

"further" categorisation based on relative access derived from the 2021 Rural Urban Classification (RUC) methodology. This represents whether a town is within 30 minutes' drive of a town of at least 75,000 people (nearer) or not (further). This is a proxy for access to the wider goods, services and employment opportunities offered by major towns and cities.

 

Source

Office for National Statistics (ONS), released 15 May 2026, ONS website, article, Understanding towns in England and Wales, investigating socioeconomic trends: May 2026.