What is a quintile of deprivation?

Quintiles group areas into five equal sized bands. They are another way of summarising IMD ranks.

From ranks to quintiles

Just as deciles divide the ranked list of areas into ten groups, quintiles divide it into five. Each quintile contains 20 percent of areas in England.

In simple terms:

Quintile	Position in England	Short description
1	Most deprived 20 percent	Areas with the highest levels of deprivation.
2	Next most deprived 20 percent	Still relatively deprived compared with the national picture.
3	Middle 20 percent	Around the England average on the IMD measure.
4	Next least deprived 20 percent	Relatively advantaged areas.
5	Least deprived 20 percent	Areas with the lowest levels of deprivation.

Why use quintiles instead of deciles?

There are several reasons why a project might use quintiles:

They create fewer categories, which can be easier to read on charts or maps.
They reduce the risk of overinterpreting small differences between areas.
They can help ensure reasonable numbers of people or places fall into each group.

For example, a national study might compare outcomes for people living in quintile 1 versus those in quintile 5, which gives a clear view of the difference between the most and least deprived parts of the country.

Using quintiles in practice

Quintiles are often used to:

Summarise deprivation levels across wider areas such as local authorities or regions
Group individuals by the deprivation level of their neighbourhood in research studies
Set thresholds for targeting such as focusing on quintiles 1 and 2

Whichever grouping you choose, it is important to be clear in reports and funding criteria whether you are working with quintiles or deciles and how you have defined them.