Commissioned by the BBC, we have created heat maps of the UK based on where people are likely to be struggling to keep on top of their debts. These are people who are either in work or who have retired. This is based on analysis we’ve carried out of information taken, for example, from public records and lifestyle surveys, and from aggregated information from our credit reference agency about how we all pay our bills.
The analysis does paint an interesting picture, particularly when you look at some of the population subgroups. For example, it reveals that Merthyr Tydfil has the highest portion of older people in financial stress in the country.
Experian carries out this sort of analysis for organisations like Money Advice Service and National Debtline to help them reach the right people with the right advice and support about credit and debt. We also provide thousands of free credit reports to people through the debt advice charities to help with debt counselling sessions.
Furthermore, we use this sort of insight to inform the financial education work we do in primary schools around the country with the charity pfeg and our free schools resource Values, Money and Me.
Below you can see the five heat maps we’ve produced. The first covers all struggling groups overall, then you’ll find four subgroups - young singles, young families, middle incomes and older people. For all five maps we’ve also included the top five towns/areas where we find concentrations of people in these groups struggling with debt.
Overall debt – link to map
Young singles – link to map
Young families – link to map
Middle incomes – link to map
Older people – link to map
For more information please contact the Experian Press Office