Wirral Acorn Profile

Latest Wirral Acorn Report 2024

Key Messages

  1. ACORN can be used to classify the population into 7 Categories, 22 Groups or 65 Types, based on their postcode.

  2. The largest ACORN Category is 4: Steadfast Communities, with 92,505 people, or 28.3% of the Wirral population classified as belonging to this Group; this Group is typically ‘middle of the road Britain’, with working families on incomes just below the UK average.

  3. Over half of the population of Wirral (54.8%) are classified as belonging to just 4 ACORN Groups, 3G: Settled Suburbia (12.1%), 4L: Traditional Homeowners (16.8%), 5R: Hard-Up Households (12.2%) and 6S: Cash-Strapped Families (13.7%).

  4. Eight ACORN Groups exist in such small numbers in Wirral, they can mainly be disregarded in analysis concerning the Wirral population; these are 1A: Exclusive Addresses (0.0%), 1B: Flourishing Capital (0.0%), 2E: Prosperous Professionals (0.0%), 3I: Up-and-Coming Urbanities (0.5%), 3H: Metropolitan Surroundings (0.0%), 3J: Aspiring Communities (0.8%), 4N: Urban Diversity (0.3%) and 7V: Not Private Households (0.9%).

  5. The geographic distribution of the different ACORN Categories, Groups and Types in Wirral reinforces very clearly, what is already known about deprivation in Wirral, with the east of Wirral is dominated by deprived Categories such as 5: Stretched Society and 6: Low-Income Living; the west of Wirral on the other hand, is dominated by more affluent ACORN Categories 1: Luxury Lifestyles and 2: Established Affluence.

  6. Although the majority of the UK adult population (83.6%) now own a smartphone, this varies considerably; among the most common ACORN Group in Wirral (Group 6: Low-Income Living), this figure is much lower at only 80.4% compared to 85.3% in Group 3: Thriving Neighbourhoods.

What is an Acorn report?

to be added w/c 22nd July 2024

What's included in an Acorn report?

to be added w/c 22nd July 2024

How you could use an Acorn report?

to be added w/c 22nd July 2024

Our future plans for Acorn reports

Acorn is a new and exciting tool we can use in the development of local insight and intelligence. We have our ideas as to the type and range of future reports we can produce but are happy to discuss your ideas and suggestions too. Please drop us an email at phintelligence@wirral.gov.uk

For more information about Acorn, or to find out if it could help you in your area of work, please contact us at at phintelligence@wirral.gov.uk

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Previous reports produced using Mosaic information

Previous Reports

Please note: Due to changes in methodology by the provider of this data, it is not possible for these reports to be exactly compared to newer information in the main as some groups have been reclassified.

Overview of Mosaic

Mosaic is one of a number of tools which can help health, local government and third sector organisations gain more insight about their residents, target services at those most in need of them and communicate with people in the way they prefer. 

Mosaic segments the population according to postcode and is constructed from a range of sources including the Census, consumer behaviour, financial data, hospital episode statistics (HES) and lifestyle data.

In the current climate of financial challenge, Mosaic can be a very useful tool, as it allows organisations to target information at those who may find it most relevant or useful. Mosaic segments the population into 15 groups (A-O), and the Wirral Profile 2021, shows how those 15 groups are distributed across Wirral, with tables and maps explaining the differences between the groups and how Wirral looks compared to England for example.

More about Mosaic

  • Packages such as Mosaic have become more widely used by the public sector in recent years because they are useful in providing in-depth information about the needs and behaviours of local people.

  • They use a large number of open data sources including the Census, health, education, criminal justice system, housing and consumer data (i.e. about products that people buy and their finances for example) to ‘segment’ the population into different groups, who can then be better targeted based on their preferences, needs and behaviours.

  • Using Mosaic means that information can be targeted just where it is needed. For example, information on how you can reduce your risk of falling as you age is not appropriate for people in their 20’s, but it may be of interest to people in their 70’s and 80’s.

  • Targeting messages more effectively and ensuring that the right message is read by the right person at the right time is also cost-effective, as resources are not wasted informing everybody about issues which may not affect them.

  • The profiles we produce using Mosaic are used to inform and commission services. Below are some examples of the information we have provided to various teams and departments in Wirral to enable them target their work more effectively, as well as an overall profile of Wirral.

  • Mosaic is not appropriate for every situation or service of course, but it is one of several useful tools our team has access to, which informs and provides us with additional insight into the needs of Wirral residents.