From September 2026, free school meal eligibility will expand to include children in all households in England in receipt of Universal Credit.
The Department for Education estimates an additional 500,000 children will be entitled to free school meals. We wanted to find out what this means at a local level.
Our partners at Bremner & Co delved into the data to create this new Local Authority Explorer. It revealed big variations between different councils and regions. Our team at Sustain have created this heat map, that presents headline data, and the total gap analysis. We have ranked each council area according to the scale of uplift, as there are such large variations across the country.
Select any of England's 153 local authorities and see, in seconds, what might the maximum number of pupils who could be newly identified for free school meals, as eligibility expands.
Want to know more?
Visit the Bremner & Co website where you can access a more detailed database tool - that breaks down the data further, including potential maximum new registrations by each Key Stage of education.
Data sources & methodology for this map:
Data on Free School Meal eligibility and children in households in receipt of Universal Credit were drawn from the following sources:
Department for Education, June 2026, Schools, Pupils and their Characteristics
Department for Work and Pensions, November 2025, Number of school age children in UC households by school year
Figures were adjusted to take account of children in Key Stage 1 already in receipt of Universal Infant Free School Meals, and also children in Key Stage 2 in London boroughs who are already receiving meals via the Mayor of London's additional funding for universal primary school meals.
The gap ranking is based on the percentage change in children becoming newly eligible for free school meals in each council.
Children's Food Campaign: Campaigning for policy changes so that all children can easily eat sustainable and healthy food.
