Headcount

Places

Every UK council on the same 17 measures, side by side. Each dot is a council: pick any two measures to see the pattern. Each figure says what it counts, its date and its source.

or open the full page

Your full postcode stays on this device.

Postcodes: ONS, August 2026

The council for each postcode comes from the ONS National Statistics Postcode Lookup (NSPL), August 2026, the ONS best fit from 2021 Census areas. Live postcodes only. Northern Ireland postcodes are not included: their licence does not allow publishing them on a free public site.

Your full postcode stays on this device: your browser fetches only the small file for its first half (SW1A for SW1A 1AA) from this site, and works out the council itself.

  • Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0
  • Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026
  • Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026

A pattern across places is not cause. A council's figures describe the area, not the people in it.

On this page
  1. Patterns
  2. Every council
  3. Biggest changes
  4. Sources and method

Patterns

Each dot is a council, coloured by the party with more than half its seats. The councils furthest out are named. Hover or tap a dot for its figures.

What each axis counts

Every council

Each figure has its rank among the councils that have it, with a bar for where it sits: 1 is the highest, and a full bar is the highest.

Nation or region and council seats also filter the chart above and the biggest changes.

Biggest changes

The councils where a published count rose or fell most between two dates, from the same series each council page draws.

Between

Rank by

Largest rises

    Largest falls

      Sources and method

      Ranks. 1 is the highest value. Ranks are worked out on the figures as stored (two more decimal places than shown), and councils with the same stored figure share the better rank. Each rank is out of the councils that have a figure on that measure, so the number ranked can be under 361.

      One base for every rate. Every rate divides by the council's mid-2025 population (ONS), including DWP spending for 2024/25, so all councils share one base.

      Councils like this. The five councils nearest on population (on a log scale), share aged 65 and over, median full-time pay, the ONS 2021 rural-urban class (England and Wales only) and region. Each measure is put on the same scale across all councils before the distances are added. A comparison, not a control: other measures would pick other councils.

      Council seats. Seats by party from LG Inform (Local Government Association), as held there in 2026, a snapshot straight after the main round of local elections, not updated for by-elections or councillors changing party. Which party holds more than half is worked out from those seats. It is not a record of who runs the council, which can differ through coalitions, minority administrations and later changes. LG Inform counts Plaid Cymru, local parties and independents together, as independents and other parties, so where that group holds more than half the seats, whether one party holds more than half is not known from this source, and that group is never named as a council's largest party. Districts in two-tier areas also show their county council. Scotland and Northern Ireland are not covered.

      MPs. The winner in each 2024 general election constituency that overlaps the council (House of Commons Library results), with the share of the council's residents living in it: Census 2021 output areas in England and Wales (ONS best-fit lookup), NRS mid-2024 data zones in Scotland, and Census 2021 data zones placed by their population centre in Northern Ireland.

      The UK figures. The UK bar is the councils' numerators added up over their denominators added up, so it is the UK rate, not an average of councils. Population compares with the median council. DWP spending compares with England and Wales, the councils DWP's figures rank. Median pay is the ONS's own UK median from the same table.

      DWP totals in 2018/19 and 2020/21. DWP's 2018/19 total for each council is more than its benefit lines add up to, by the same amount as its Personal Independence Payment for under-65s, which looks counted twice (£9.1 billion across 350 councils). DWP's 2020/21 total for each council leaves out Universal Credit, which its table shows separately (£38.2 billion across 350 councils). The totals are shown as published and the points are ringed on each council's chart. No rank, per-resident figure or Biggest changes period uses either year.

      Find your council. A postcode is matched to its council in your browser, from the ONS National Statistics Postcode Lookup (August 2026): the ONS best fit from 2021 Census areas, live postcodes only. Your full postcode stays on this device: your browser fetches only the small file for its first half (SW1A for SW1A 1AA) from this site, and works out the council itself. Northern Ireland postcodes are not included, because their licence does not allow publishing them on a free public site. Source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026.

      Checked. Every figure here passed the site's independent check against its primary source.