Who Universal Credit carries

Methodology

People on Universal Credit in each London borough, monthly since May 2013, from the DWP's Stat-Xplore cube. This is the whole caseload, not the claimant count the atlas carries elsewhere: it includes households in work whose earnings do not cover their costs, which is most of the growth since 2019 and the reason the two series diverge. Figures are a point-in-time count on the second Thursday of each month and are revised for several weeks after first publication, so the newest month is held back until it settles. Boroughs are residence-based — where the claimant lives, not where their jobcentre is. Read the long trend with care: London's caseload has more than tripled since 2019, but Universal Credit was still replacing six older benefits over that period, so part of that rise is people moved across from tax credits and Employment and Support Allowance rather than newly in need. The shape after managed migration completes is the one to compare against.