How does my area compare?

Blaenau Gwent has the highest spending on Employment and Support Allowance per person aged 16 to 64 in 2024-25.

Money for people whose illness or disability limits how much they can work. Shown in cash terms, not adjusted for inflation.

Per person aged 16 to 64, low to high

Under £207
£207 to £283
£283 to £359
£359 to £435
£435 to £511
£511 and over

Spending on Employment and Support Allowance, per person aged 16 to 64, 2024-25, by local authority. Boundaries are simplified. London is also shown larger, in a separate box. Northern Ireland is not covered. Every value is in the table below.

More ways to look at itHow ranks change, why spending changed, and spending compared with the expected level

Total or per person

Does the order change when you count per person?

Each line is one of the 350 ranked local authorities. It joins the area's rank for each way of counting. The 10 highest per person aged 16 to 64 are drawn in dark lines.

What changed

More people, more claims or bigger payments?

Great Britain, Employment and Support Allowance: yearly spending at the rate in February 2023 and in March 2026. The chart splits the change into three parts: the number of people in the age group, the share of them claiming, and the average payment. Cash terms, not adjusted for inflation.

What changed: Employment and Support Allowance
February 2023	£11.7bn
Population	+£77.6m
Share claiming	−£5.6bn
Payment size	−£1.0bn
March 2026	£5.1bn

The share claiming is the number of people claiming per person aged 16 to 64. Yearly spending here is the number claiming, times the average weekly payment, times 52. It is not the amount paid out over the year. Population after mid-2024 stays at the mid-2024 figure, so later growth shows in the share claiming.

Compared with similar areas

Is spending higher or lower than expected?

Spending on working-age benefits per person aged 16 to 64, 2024-25. We compare it with the level we would expect from each area's share of children and of people aged 66 and over, how deprived it is compared with the rest of its nation, and the typical pay of people who live there. Cash terms, not adjusted for inflation.

Expected level = −£567 + £3,670 × share aged 0 to 15 − £115 × share aged 66 and over − £170 × deprivation decile + £257 × ln(median pay) + £432 × Wales + £94 × Scotland. Fitted by ordinary least squares across 348 local authorities. R² = 0.85. Gold dots are above the expected level and grey dots are below it.

Every local authority

Spending on Employment and Support Allowance, 2024-25. Rank is for per person aged 16 to 64, and 1 is the highest. Areas with fewer than 1,000 people in the age group have no rank. The first 50 of 350 rows are shown.

Spending on Employment and Support Allowance for every local authority, 2024-25
Rank
1	Blaenau Gwent	£29.3m	£433	£701
2	Merthyr Tydfil	£22.7m	£387	£629
3	West Dunbartonshire	£34.7m	£390	£625
4	Neath Port Talbot	£52.9m	£371	£608
5	Glasgow City	£275.3m	£423	£597
6	Caerphilly	£64.2m	£364	£594
7	Rhondda Cynon Taf	£88.7m	£367	£590
8	Blackpool	£51.8m	£361	£588
9	Inverclyde	£28.3m	£360	£584
10	Knowsley	£57.6m	£356	£569
11	North Ayrshire	£44.9m	£335	£562
12	Liverpool	£191.1m	£376	£555
13	North Lanarkshire	£112.2m	£327	£509
14	Carmarthenshire	£55.6m	£292	£503
15	Bridgend	£44.8m	£304	£498
16	Dundee City	£48.7m	£326	£497
17	Torfaen	£28.1m	£298	£493
18	Wirral	£95.2m	£290	£487
19	Denbighshire	£27.3m	£278	£485
20	Torbay	£38.4m	£275	£481
21	Renfrewshire	£57.0m	£302	£474
22	Dumfries and Galloway	£39.3m	£270	£472
23	Chesterfield	£30.2m	£286	£468
24	Redcar and Cleveland	£37.9m	£273	£467
25	East Ayrshire	£34.2m	£282	£462
26	St. Helens	£53.2m	£283	£457
27	Clackmannanshire	£14.6m	£280	£452
28	Swansea	£71.4m	£285	£452
29	South Ayrshire	£29.0m	£259	£449
30	Mansfield	£31.3m	£276	£448
31	Sefton	£75.3m	£264	£445
32	Sunderland	£78.9m	£275	£445
33	South Tyneside	£40.5m	£268	£444
34	East Lindsey	£34.7m	£239	£439
35	Conwy	£28.0m	£245	£438
36	Kingston upon Hull, City of	£77.6m	£283	£437
37	Middlesbrough	£42.3m	£273	£433
38	West Lothian	£50.8m	£273	£429
39	Isle of Anglesey	£16.4m	£239	£427
40	Hyndburn	£22.7m	£264	£426
41	Pembrokeshire	£30.0m	£239	£422
42	South Lanarkshire	£87.4m	£262	£422
43	Bolsover	£21.7m	£260	£416
44	Isle of Wight	£32.5m	£230	£416
45	Barnsley	£64.3m	£256	£415
46	County Durham	£137.1m	£255	£414
47	Hastings	£23.1m	£254	£412
48	Stoke-on-Trent	£69.7m	£258	£412
49	Ashfield	£32.6m	£253	£411
50	Nottingham	£95.1m	£288	£410

League table of every local authority for the latest period

Values are per person aged 16 to 64 unless a column says otherwise. Sources: Department for Work and Pensions, Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland.

Every measureThe full list, as plain links

Does the order change when you count per person?

More people, more claims or bigger payments?

Is spending higher or lower than expected?

Every local authority

Choose a measure