Education and poverty
Young people from low-income families have lower educational attainment.
Education is a devolved power and this means that education systems vary across the 4 countries in the UK and so are not directly comparable. In most cases, schools and governments do not collect information on the incomes of parents, so we need to use other information that is available to identify when children might be growing up in a household in poverty or low/lower incomes.
| Attainment metric | Disadvantaged | Not known to be disadvantaged | Attainment gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proportion of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths at KS2 (Aged 11) | 47% | 69% | 22 ppts |
| Proportion of students achieving a grade 5 or above in both GCSE English and maths (Aged 16) | 26% | 53% | 27 ppts |
Source: Department for Education
Notes: Disadvantaged pupils are those who were registered as eligible for free school meals (FSM) at any point in the last 6 years, children looked after by a local authority or have left local authority care in England and Wales through adoption, a special guardianship order, a residence order or a child arrangements order.
| Attainment metric | FSM | Non-FSM | Attainment gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proportion of school leavers achieving at least 5 GCSEs A*–C (or equivalents) including GCSE English and Maths (Aged 16) | 52% | 77% | 25 ppts |
Source: NISRA
Notes: Primary attainment by FSM is not regularly published in Northern Ireland.
| Attainment metric | Most deprived 20% of areas | Least deprived 20% of areas | Attainment gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of primary 7 achieving literacy (Aged 11) | 65% | 85% | 20 ppts |
| Percentage of primary 7 achieving numeracy (Aged 11) | 70% | 70% | 19 ppts |
| 1 or more at SCQF at level 5 upon leaving school (Aged 16–18) | 78% | 78% | 18 ppts |
Source: Scottish Government, 2024 and 2025
| Attainment metric | FSM | Non-FSM | Attainment gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of GCSE entries awarded A*–C (Aged 16) | 40% | 68% | 29 ppts |
Source: StatsWales, 2025
Notes: Teacher assessment of KS2 is no longer published by FSM status (Welsh Government, 2019), however, they do show the attainment gap across skills levels by FSM. Attainment gap does not equal non-FSM minus FSM due to rounding.
The data shows a substantial gap in educational attainment exists between children from disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged backgrounds across all four nations, although the measures used vary across each nation meaning they are not comparable.
In the UK, over half (55%) of entries into first undergraduate degrees have a parent whose highest occupational status is a professional or managerial occupation. Around 1 in 5 (18%) entrants to higher education from the UK have a parent whose highest occupational status is working in a routine or semi-routine occupation. Just 1% of young people starting a degree in 2023/24 had a parent whose highest occupational status is long-term unemployed or never worked (this could be due to a range of reasons including disability and caring responsibilities).
| Highest parental occupational status | Percentage of total first-degree undergraduate enrolments |
|---|---|
| Higher managerial & professional occupations | 31% |
| Lower managerial & professional occupations | 24% |
| Intermediate occupations | 12% |
| Small employers & own account workers | 9% |
| Lower supervisory & technical occupations | 5% |
| Semi-routine occupations | 8% |
| Routine occupations | 10% |
| Long-term unemployed or never worked | 1% |
Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2025
Data source
The data on this page is part of the UK poverty statistics dashboard. The data is initially derived from our UK Poverty 2026 report, which includes an Excel download in the appendix.