Glasgow · Six parts of the story · 2000–2026

What changed in Glasgow

Glasgow has Scotland's worst child-poverty rate and the biggest ten-year rise. These six pages show the wider story: children, work, benefits, wages, neighbourhoods and how long people live.

parts of Glasgow's story, each with an easy summary and the exact proof

What this means

Start with any card. It gives the simple answer first.

If you want to check it, open the chart, exact figures and original source on the same page.

Children

Getting worse

More than one in three Glasgow children is growing up poor

Ten years ago the figure was 27.1%. It is now 36.1% — the biggest rise of any Scottish council area.

2014/15 – 2023/24

Work

Getting better

Far more Glaswegians are in work than in 2004

In 2004, 62.7% of working-age Glaswegians had a job. The figure reached 72.1% in 2022, much closer to Scotland as a whole.

2004 – 2025

Benefits

Getting better

Fewer people need out-of-work benefits than in 2000

The figure fell from 6.0% in 2000 to 3.2% in 2016, jumped during the pandemic and is about 4.5% now.

2000 – 2026

Pay

What the Glasgow pay figures actually measure

£796.50 a week is about £41,400 a year, and it sounds far too high because it is not what a typical worker earns. It covers full-time employee jobs only — every part-time job is excluded — and it is gross pay including overtime and bonuses, before tax and National Insurance.

2008 – 2025

Neighbourhoods

Getting better

Far fewer Glaswegians live in Scotland's worst-off neighbourhoods

Almost half of Glaswegians lived in Scotland's worst-off tenth of neighbourhoods in 2004. By 2020 it was under a third — 29%.

SIMD 2004 – 2020

Life expectancy

Stalled

Glasgow gained four years of life, then it stopped

People in Glasgow were living longer until about 2012. Then progress stopped. The latest male figure on this chart is 73.6 years, the lowest in Scotland.

Men, 2001–03 – 2017–19

Each measure has its own chart

The small line on every card above is a preview. Open a card and you get the full chart, ten years of figures and the source it came from.

On those charts, blue is Glasgow and orange is Scotland. Any other line is named above it. If a figure may be unreliable the line is dotted and the reason is given, and every chart has a “See the numbers behind this chart” button with the exact values.

The simple version comes first, but nobody has to take my word for it. Journalists and researchers can download all the data.

Want the figures for your own council area?

Every Scottish council area has its own page with a clear summary first and the exact local figures underneath.

One simple next step

Find your area Check how it was counted