Child Poverty in the UK: What Government Policy Measures and Where Clothing Fits

By Zöe Rucker

Four million children were living in relative poverty after housing costs in the UK in 2024/25. That is 27% of all children¹.

What does it mean for a child to be counted as living in poverty?

Nine months after the Government published its ten-year Child Poverty Strategy, we now have the baseline against which its progress will be measured. It includes the familiar measure of household income but also asks whether children have access to things considered essential to an acceptable standard of living.

One of them is clothing.

How is child poverty measured in the UK?

The Government uses two main measures to track child poverty.

The first is based on income. Relative poverty compares a family's income with incomes across the UK.

The second is called ‘deep material poverty’. This looks at what families can actually afford.

It considers 13 things regarded as essential. Eight relate to the household, including being able to pay bills, deal with unexpected expenses and repair essential appliances, and have a warm, damp-free home, working utilities, and affordable transport. 

Five relate directly to children:

• a suitable place to do homework

• three meals a day

• fresh fruit or vegetables every day

• enough clothes that they feel comfortable wearing

• enough age-appropriate toys, games and outdoor equipment. 

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A child is in deep material poverty if their household lacks at least four of the 13 essentials¹.

In 2024/25, 1.9 million UK children, or 13%, were in deep material poverty¹.

The two measures do not always identify the same children. In 2023/24, around 900,000 children were in deep material poverty despite living above the relative poverty income line².

This shows why income alone does not give the full picture.

Clothing has been measured for more than 20 years

Its place in child poverty measurement is not new.

Child material-deprivation questions first entered the Family Resources Survey in 2004/05. The previous measure included whether children had a warm winter coat³.

Following concerns that the questions might no longer reflect essential needs in contemporary society, the Department for Work and Pensions commissioned researchers at the London School of Economics to review them. From 2023/24, the survey began asking a broader question³:

‘Does your child or do your children have enough clothes that they feel comfortable wearing?’

From having a coat to feeling comfortable

Adults and young people taking part in the research had different views about what children need from clothing.

Adults were more cautious about treating what young people wore to fit in as a necessity. Young people were almost unanimous that having enough clothes they felt comfortable wearing was necessary.

They weren't talking only about fashion. Comfort included clothes fitting properly, but young people also talked about confidence, self-esteem and how what they wore could affect how they felt and behaved during the day³.

The revised question goes beyond whether a child has something to wear for physical protection to consider how they feel in it. The same research explored whether replacing worn-out clothes with new rather than second-hand items should be considered a necessity.

It wasn't. Good-quality second-hand clothes were considered adequate, and not necessarily a sign of poverty³.

So how many children don't have enough clothes?

The Government does publish a figure.

In 2024/25, 2% of children were living in families that did not have enough clothes they felt comfortable wearing⁴.

This is different from the 1.9 million children in deep material poverty. A child can lack four of the other essentials and still have enough clothes.

The survey also does not tell us exactly what a child is missing, such as suitable shoes, underwear, clothes for different weather or sportswear³.

It is a broad indicator of clothing deprivation, not a national minimum wardrobe.

Measuring a problem is not the same as responding to it

The survey tells Government about clothing deprivation across the UK. It does not identify individual children for support.

Help is provided separately. In England, for example, local authorities can choose to use the Crisis and Resilience Fund to help families with items such as winter clothing, shoes and school uniform⁵. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have specific schemes to help eligible families with school clothing or uniform costs⁶.

In England, school uniform guidance also considers affordability, quality, durability and sustainability, and says schools should ensure families can access second-hand items⁷.

Government measures deprivation nationally, while some clothing support is available separately through national or local schemes. There is no direct link between the two. A family reporting through the national survey that their children do not have enough clothes is not, as a result of that answer, referred for support.

Where does sustainability fit?

The finding on second-hand clothes links adequacy and sustainability. What a child wears can remain adequate without being new³.

School uniform provides a practical example. Reusing it can keep garments in use for longer while reducing the cost for another family. Government guidance asks schools to consider affordability alongside quality, durability, sustainability and access to second-hand uniform⁷.

But that connection is not built into the national child poverty measure. Environmental policy can measure what happens to clothing and textiles as materials, while poverty statistics can measure whether children have enough clothes they feel comfortable wearing.

What happens next?

The Child Poverty Strategy has made deep material poverty one of the two headline measures against which progress will be judged. The Government's first monitoring report establishes 2024/25 as the baseline, with progress to be tracked and reported¹.

It is too early to use that baseline to decide whether the Strategy has reduced child poverty. That question can be tested as comparable evidence becomes available.

Clothing has been part of child material-deprivation measurement for more than two decades, although what Government asks has changed³. Today, having enough clothes that children feel comfortable wearing is one of the essentials used to measure deep material poverty¹.

References:

1. Department for Work and Pensions, Our Children, Our Future: Tackling Child Poverty: Monitoring and Evaluation Baseline Report, July 2026, updated August 2026. The report establishes the 2024/25 baseline, the two headline measures and the latest figures of 4.0 million children (27%) in relative low income after housing costs and 1.9 million (13%) in deep material poverty. It defines deep material poverty as lacking at least four of 13 essential items. 

2. Department for Work and Pensions, Deep material poverty: Financial year ending 2024, updated August 2026. DWP reports that in 2023/24, 0.9 million children were in deep material poverty but not relative low income after housing costs. 

3. Department for Work and Pensions / Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics and Political Science, Review of the UK Material Deprivation Measures, March 2024; DWP technical report on the updated material-deprivation measures. These establish the history and development of the clothing measure, the former warm-winter-coat measure, the revised comfortable-clothing question, young people's views about fit, confidence and self-esteem, and the findings about second-hand clothing. The DWP technical report confirms how the new clothing question is treated in the measure. 

4. Department for Work and Pensions, Households Below Average Income, FYE 2025, Tables 4.7db and 4.8db; presented by the House of Commons Library, Which children are most likely to be in poverty in the UK?, May 2026. The 2024/25 data show that 2% of children live in families lacking enough clothes they feel comfortable wearing. The Commons Library chart identifies DWP HBAI Tables 4.7db and 4.8db as its source. 

5. Department for Work and Pensions, Crisis and Resilience Fund: Guidance for local authorities in England, 2026. Local authorities have discretion over Crisis Payments, which may include clothing such as uniform, warm winter clothing and shoes. 

6. Scottish Government; Welsh Government; nidirect/Education Authority, current school clothing and uniform assistance. Scotland continues to fund the School Clothing Grant; Wales's School Essentials Grant supports eligible families with uniform and other school costs; and Northern Ireland provides uniform grants to eligible pupils. 

7. Department for Education, Cost of school uniforms: statutory guidance, updated July 2026. The guidance addresses affordability, quality, durability and sustainability and says schools should ensure opportunities to acquire second-hand uniform are freely accessible.

Further reading

For more from Clothing Collective on child poverty, clothing need and sustainability:

• What is in the UK Government Child Poverty Strategy and what it means for clothing poverty 

• The Child Who Doesn’t Qualify: Why Children’s Clothing Need Often Goes Unnoticed 

• School Blazers and the Cost of Belonging: Government legislation to change school uniform policies 

• Has the Needle Shifted? How Do We Know If Clothing Sustainability Is Working?