Suffrago UK Data Hub
RankingsVerificationMethods

Independent service run by Suffrago – not an official government website. Every figure comes from an official UK publisher under its open licence and is checked against that source each time the data is refreshed.

Pupils eligible for free school meals, by region

Percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals in each region of England, latest academic year.

Highest: North East

32.97%

2025/26

Verified against source, 29 October 2026, 11:48 UTC
Eligible for free school meals
0%10%20%30%40%North East32.97%West Midlands31.94%North West29.69%London29.15%Yorkshire and The Humber28.62%East Midlands26.0%South West21.54%South East21.11%East of England21.1%

Source: Department for Education. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Data table

9 rows

CategoryEligible for free school meals
North East32.97%
West Midlands31.94%
North West29.69%
London29.15%
Yorkshire and The Humber28.62%
East Midlands26.0%
South West21.54%
South East21.11%
East of England21.1%

Download CSVDownload JSON with full provenance

Source and licence

Publisher
Department for Education
Check it yourself
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics
Licence
Open Government Licence v3.0 – Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Retrieved
29 October 2026, 11:46 UTC
Raw files fetched

Verification

Verified against source, 29 October 2026, 11:48 UTC Run at 29 October 2026, 11:48 UTC; 9 of 9 figures matched the live source.

ResultCheckDetail
PassProvenance recordedDepartment for Education; Open Government Licence v3.0; retrieved 2026-10-29T11:46:51Z; 1 raw file(s)
PassRaw files match recorded SHA-2561 of 1 files intact
PassRe-parsing raw files reproduces figures9 of 9 figures and the headline reproduced
PassFigures are finite numbers9 figures, 0 invalid
PassLive source matches every figure9 of 9 figures match exactly after downloading 1 source file(s) again (1 byte-identical); the headline matches
PassEES query API agrees9 of 9 figures match the EES query API (https://api.education.gov.uk/statistics/v1/data-sets/019e7404-df19-71ce-90a8-f2e3db7dd7fa/query)
PassSource page answershttps://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics – HTTP 200