Croydon is a southern, Outer London borough, with the largest population of any borough. Croydon’s figures tend to be fairly close to the London average for a lot of measures, including the unemployment rate, child poverty and education indicators. The unemployment ratio has dropped significantly in recent years, from 8.4% to 4.7% - a greater reduction than any other borough except Newham. Only 21.5% of Croydon residents live below the poverty line, which is well below the London average of 27%. It is still higher than the national average of 20% though.

On the downside, 24% of employees in Croydon are low-paid, which is higher than the London average of 22%. The homelessness acceptances rate in Croydon is also above the London average, with 7 out of every 1,000 residents accepted as homeless.

The rankings below show how Croydon is performing on key poverty and inequality indicators, in comparison with all 32 London boroughs. The first section gives a snapshot from the latest data: the deeper the red, the worse the problem; those coloured green are in the top half of London boroughs, which are performing better.

The circles show whether the issue is getting better or worse in comparison to previous period. Where there is no change, the circle is orange. Where there is no comparative data, the circle is grey.