Spatial inequalities in the UK are profound and persistent. In 2019, average wages in London were 60% higher than those in Scarborough and Grimsby. Employment rates ranged from 66% in Skegness and Louth to 90% in Harrogate. Around half of working-age adults in London and Brighton had degrees, compared with less than a fifth in places such as Doncaster, Mansfield and Grimsby.

These spatial inequalities have concerned successive governments and currently sit high up the political agenda. The Conservatives under Boris Johnson have made 'levelling up' the core of their programme for government, with Michael Gove, the head of the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, calling it the 'defining mission of this government'. Polling shows that inequalities between more and less deprived areas are considered the most serious form of inequality in Britain, and an issue on which there is significant agreement across the political spectrum (Benson et al., 2021).

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2 February 2022

The IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities

Spatial disparities across labour markets

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This External report is part of the centre's Urban programme.