MHCLG · Outstanding borrowing 2026 Q2, Resident population mid-2025 · Local authority
Which councils owe the most per resident?
Each council's outstanding borrowing divided by its resident population. Both figures are published; the division is a Civometry calculation. Total borrowing tracks the size of the council; per resident it shows the weight of the debt on the place.
Cambridge owes £1,992 in gross borrowing for every resident (Outstanding borrowing 2026 Q2, Resident population mid-2025) — the 98th highest of 361 areas with a published figure.
Area
Cambridge (E07000008)
Outstanding borrowing per resident, £
£1,992
Rank
the 98th highest of 361 areas with a published figure
Percentile
73% of areas with a figure are below it
Period
Outstanding borrowing 2026 Q2, Resident population mid-2025
Release
Outstanding borrowing: Borrowing and investment live table, Q1 2026 to 2027; Resident population: ONS mid-year estimates, mid-2025 edition (2023 boundaries)
outstanding borrowing ÷ resident population, in pounds per person
Both figures are published for this area. Nothing is weighted, smoothed or modelled, so the sum above can be checked by hand.
Cambridge owes £1,992 in gross borrowing for every resident (Outstanding borrowing 2026 Q2, Resident population mid-2025) — the 98th highest of 361 areas with a published figure. Civometry calculation using MHCLG and ONS, NRS and NISRA figures. Calculation: Outstanding borrowing £ million299 ÷ Resident population people149,872 (mid-2025) × 1000000 = 1992.
Civometry · Outstanding borrowing 2026 Q2, Resident population mid-2025
Ranked by outstanding borrowing per resident, £, highest first; ties in alphabetical order. Areas without a value are not ranked.
What this map shows
361 of 361 local authority areas have a current value for borrowing per resident (outstanding borrowing per resident, £), Outstanding borrowing 2026 Q2, Resident population mid-2025. Classes are quantiles of the areas with data, computed on the server, so the same link always gives the same legend.
Gross borrowing, not net of investments or the assets it bought. The population is the newest mid-year estimate, which runs a year or two behind the borrowing quarter.
Mid-year resident population estimate for the same council (ONS for England and Wales, NRS for Scotland, NISRA for Northern Ireland), each area's newest published year. The population year runs behind the borrowing quarter and both periods are named on every figure.
Estimates of the population for England and Wales (mid-year), local authority tables.
Coverage
Every UK council with a borrowing figure and a mid-year population estimate. County councils, police, fire, combined authorities and the GLA group borrow separately and are not shown.
Boundaries
ONS Open Geography Portal generalised boundaries, Open Government Licence v3.0 (2025-05 BGC v2 LAD_MAY_2025_UK_BGC_V2).
Basemap
Ordnance Survey Maps API (Light), used under the OS Data Hub terms.
Formula
outstanding borrowing (sum of published components) ÷ newest mid-year resident population
Stale areas
Both sides use the newest period each source publishes for the area. An area missing either side is no data, with the missing side named. Nothing is carried forward and no year is interpolated.
Net indebtedness or financial health: borrowing is not offset against the authority's investments or the assets it bought, and much of it funds housing, regeneration and infrastructure with income attached. The UK figure covers every local government body — county councils, police, fire, combined authorities, national parks and the GLA group — so the council rows shown here do not sum to it.
Gross borrowing at the end of the quarter, summed by Civometry from the component columns of MHCLG's live table because the table publishes no total. It is not a measure of financial health: investments and the assets the borrowing bought are not netted off, and much council borrowing funds housing, regeneration or infrastructure with income attached, so a high figure is not by itself a problem nor a low one a virtue. In two-tier England the county council borrows separately from the districts, and police, fire, combined authorities, national parks and the GLA group borrow separately again — those bodies are in the UK total but have no page here. Every quarter is restated at each release.
Gross borrowing is not a verdict on financial health — much of it funds housing, regeneration and infrastructure with income attached — but per resident it is the comparable measure of how much debt sits on each place.