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IMD Postcode Checker

The IMD Postcode Checker is a tiny thing made with lean but boring code, open data and plenty of ❤️.

The tool enables you to look up the Index of Multiple Deprivation rank for a list of postcodes. The lower the rank, the more deprived the area.

The results can be limited to a maximum decile value. A decile is a range divided into 10 chunks similar to the way a percentage is a range divided into 100 chunks. A decile of 1 means the postcode is in the bottom 10% of of the deprivation index, a decile of 2 means the postcode is in the bottom 20%, and so on.

What is the IMD?

The Index of Multiple Deprivation, commonly known as the IMD, is the official measure of relative deprivation for small areas in England.

The Index of Multiple Deprivation ranks every small area, called lower-layer super output areas (LSOA), in England from 1 (most deprived area) to 32,844 (least deprived area).

The IMD combines information from the seven domains to produce an overall relative measure of deprivation. The domains are combined using the following weights:

  • Income Deprivation (22.5%)
  • Employment Deprivation (22.5%)
  • Education, Skills and Training Deprivation (13.5%)
  • Health Deprivation and Disability (13.5%)
  • Crime (9.3%)
  • Barriers to Housing and Services (9.3%)
  • Living Environment Deprivation (9.3%)

Data used in this tool

Installing for local development

This project is a dead simple single file PHP script plus a SQLite database. The database is rather large, so I distribute it in a compressed 7zip file.

  1. Clone or download the code
  2. Extract the SQLite database file found in db\imd.sqlite3.7z. The imd.sqlite3 file should be placed in the db folder.
  3. Start a local PHP server in the root directory of the project: php -S localhost:8000
  4. Visit http://localhost:8000

Note: you might need to install PHP locally first. If you get errors, check your php.ini file and make sure extension=pdo_sqlite is enabled.

Technical notes

The tool is a single PHP file, a stylesheet and a SQLite database containing some stripped-back ONSPD and IMD data. Specifically, we're using only the following columns from those data sets:

onspd.pcds
imd.lsoa_name_11
imd.imd_rank
imd.imd_decile