Deprivation

Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020

Each neighbourhood in Scotland (a 2011 data zone) placed in a tenth of all Scottish neighbourhoods by overall deprivation, from the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020v2.

Level of detail
Neighbourhood
Published for
Neighbourhood
Covers
Scotland
Updates
Every few years
Latest period
2020
Published
27 April 2020
Fetched by Open Index
15 October 2026
Licence
Open Government Licence 3.0

Where it covers

  • Scotland
  • England(not covered)
  • Wales(not covered)
  • Northern Ireland(not covered)

England measures deprivation its own way. See the English Indices of Deprivation 2025.

Wales measures deprivation its own way. See the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation 2025.

Northern Ireland measures deprivation its own way. See the Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure 2017.

  • Scotland6,976 of 6,976 neighbourhoods have a figure

How it is made

Open Index shows the figures as Scottish Government publishes them, for the areas they were published for: neighbourhoods.

Larger areas use the publisher’s own figures, never an average of smaller areas.

Zoom in past neighbourhood level and the map keeps the neighbourhood shapes and says so, rather than inventing detail.

  • Neighbourhood2020 only

Before you use it

  • Deprivation here is relative. Decile 1 is the most deprived tenth of neighbourhoods in Scotland and decile 10 the least. A decile says where a neighbourhood sits among the others, not how deprived it is.
  • The indices describe areas, not people. Many people who are not deprived live in deprived neighbourhoods, and many deprived people live in neighbourhoods that are not.
  • The Scottish Government says the next edition, SIMD 2026, is due in the latter part of 2026, but has not given a date. It will use the 2022 data zones, and Open Index will show it as a separate layer.
  • Neighbourhoods on this layer are the 2011 data zones, which differ from the 2022 data zones used for other Scottish figures, so the outlines will not line up exactly.
  • The Scottish Government publishes the rank of each neighbourhood and a table from rank to decile. Open Index looks the decile up in that table.
  • England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each measure deprivation their own way, so Open Index never ranks or compares them together.

Colours on the map

Fixed breaks, held for every period, so colours mean the same over time.

Source and licence

Edition
SIMD 2020v2 ranks + SIMD rank to decile table
Published
27 April 2020
Fetched by Open Index
15 October 2026
Credit line

Source: Scottish Government, Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020v2. Crown copyright. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Use this data