What Are Postcode Areas, Districts and Sectors?
We are often asked what is the difference between Postcode Areas, Districts and Sectors - especially when it comes to purchasing a Postcode planning wall map for your business. So here is our guide to the four main levels of Postcode geography:
#1. Postcode Areas
The UK is broken down into 124 Postcode Areas - the first 1 or 2 letters of the Postcode. For our office Postcode of UB7 0EB, the Postcode Area is UB (Uxbridge). Areas may also have a single character such as B for Birmingham or M for Manchester.
Whilst the population of each Postcode Area varies wildly from just 23,167 in ZE (Lerwick) to over 1.9 million in B (Birmingham) alone! But as an approximation, the average population in a Postcode Area across the United Kingdom is 510,000.
#2. Postcode Districts
Each Postcode Area is then broken down into Postcode Districts which is the part of the Postcode before the space - also known as the Outward Code. Again for our office Postcode UB7 0EB, the District would be UB7 but the District can also have two digits such as L12 or SL18.
There are approximately 3,000 Postcode Districts covering the UK, each containing an average of just over 20,000 resident people.
#3. Postcode Sector
The Districts are then further broken down into Postcode Sectors which is the District plus the first number after the space. Our office falls within the Postcode Sector UB7 0.
There are over 11,000 Postcode Sectors covering the UK - on average 4 Sectors to a District and 90 Sectors to each Area. Each Postcode Sector contains a little over 5,500 people.
#4. Full Postcodes
Each Sector then contains the individual Full - or Unit - Postcodes. For example, the Postcode Sector UB7 0 contains all Postcodes that begin with UB7 0 - including our own office Postcode UB7 0EB. There are over 1.7 million Postcodes currently in circulation across the UK and each one contains on average 16 households and 36 people.