Luton in 2025
Progress report
As we publish this year’s progress report, we share the roadmap for our journey to 2040, and how we’re going to measure and track our progress towards our wildly ambitious goal.
For the first time, this report allows us to vividly paint the picture of our vision for Luton in 2040 – the shape of poverty, our economy, our health, our children, our net zero ambitions and our strong, fair community.
The eradication of poverty in the town remains our core mission – almost 10% of households in Luton live in destitution- the most extreme level of poverty where households are severely financially stretched and struggling to afford housing and other basic necessities, this is as heartbreaking as it is unacceptable.
This vision is more ambitious than any other in the country, and we know that for some, this feels unrealistic. These targets allow us to talk with clarity about what this will look like – no one in our town in destitution, and ensuring that for those that slip into poverty, our community-centred approach to creating a safety net provides timely routes out of it.
We know that our vision is having an impact - the numbers of people living in destitution in our town has dropped from 12.1% to 9.9% of households in
Luton, a positive change for almost 5,000 of our residents.
Our recent job and business creation has been exceptional – the number 1 place in the country for job growth between 2010 and 2022 and last year we were the number 2 place in the country for business creation.
We have seen consistent rises in the average wages across Luton. We have exciting developments in our town centre to look forward to. Our ‘Better off calculator’ has generated £500,000 more income for our residents.
The numbers of young people in Luton not in education, employment or training, or permanently excluded, are both lower than the national average, and education outcomes for those from disadvantaged backgrounds are better in Luton than both national averages and statistical neighbours.
Our journey to net zero is ahead of the country as a whole and litter reported in the Keep Britain Tidy survey has halved since 2021.
On top of all these things, we know it is our biggest strength that drives us forward - our community. The commitment to Luton and resilience of our diverse population enables us to repeatedly punch above our weight and confound expectations, delivering the townwide results for our residents in this report, despite the second largest gap between our need, and the funding we
recieve, in the country.
You can download the 2025 Progress Report here.
You can download the 2024 report here.
Centre for Cities Report
The 2025 Centre for Cities report highlighted both the strengths of Luton, and the challenges facing the town.
Among UK cities and large towns:
- Luton had the sixth fastest population growth (2004-2023)
- 4th highest business start-up rate (2023)
- 5th highest proportion of private sector jobs
- 8th highest house price growth (23-24)
- 6th highest housing stock growth (22-23)
- 8th lowest emissions per capita
More negatively Luton had the third highest claimant count rate, fifth lowest employment rate and ninth highest percentage of people with no formal qualifications
Social progress index
Luton’s Social Progress Index seeks to measure poverty within the town independently of economic factors and is composed of three dimensions: basic human needs (such as nutrition, water and housing); foundations of wellbeing (such as access to information and communication, and environmental quality); and opportunity (such as person rights, and inclusiveness).
Index scores are scaled 0-100 on ward level, with 100 being the highest score in terms of social progress. In the map above, the scale runs from light to dark in which the darkest shade represents the strongest performing ward.
This map shows SPI across Luton, showing the strongest performing wards in the North, North East and East of the town, with areas that are struggling predominantly in the South and West of the town. The SPI also shows strong correlation with income – areas with higher income such as Bramingham and Barnfield have better social outcomes. Areas of the town habited by newer communities, often settling around the centre of the town, show lower social progress.
Minimum Income Standard
The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) is our key measure for tracking poverty within Luton. This model estimates that 8.9% of Luton households live in destitution – homes that are severely financially stretched and struggle to afford essentials. Their outgoings significantly outweigh their low incomes, and debt may be a major worry, with physical and mental health maybe suffering as a consequence – that’s 20,000 people who are unable to afford basic living essentials. Beyond that, a further 11.8% of households, a further 27,000 residents, are struggling to pay for some basic essentials.
These figures have risen since the 2022 data, which saw 7.2% below the destitution line and 11.4% struggling for some basic essentials. While this data isn’t comparable like-for-like to the national picture, we can see from data such as the 37% rise in the distribution of emergency food parcels nationally that this is not specifically a Luton problem. We also not that households in destitution nationally rose by almost 250% between 2017 and 2022.
The MIS also shows that more than half of the town’s households (50.1%) are below the financial quality of life line – preventing them fully participating socially and culturally within society.
