Is Oxford, Oxfordshire a nice place to live?

Is Oxford a nice place to live or is Oxford rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Oxford is on the up an up, it's time for a bit of reality. Cold hard statistics culled from the Police, the Indices of Deprivation and the latest census. Is Oxford truly a nice place to live, or are Abingdon, Weston Otmoor and Woodstock a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Oxford?

Using the latest Police street crime figures (typically from 3 months ago) we have compiled a table of the most voilent Policing areas in and around Oxford. Naturally the more urban and more central areas will have a higher rate of crime, but often you can be surprised when that is not the case and that is the area you want to move to.
Policing Area Voilent Crimes
New Marston 128
Grandpont 123
Park Street 121
Walton Manor 92
Marston 20
New Botley 17
Binsey 15
New Hinksey 11
Harcourt Hill 2
South Hinksey 1

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Oxford. These statistics are published by the government every 2-3 years. They are a measure of how likely you are to be a victim of personal or material crime in an area, such as muggings or burglary. We've taken the rank average for wards in and around Oxford and compared them. The table below shows ten wards in this area, from the best to the worst.

You least likely to be a victim of crime in the North ward.

Ward Average rank in England
North (Best) 27189/32845
St Margaret's 26978/32845
Churchill 21603/32845
Jericho and Osney 17637/32845
Iffley Fields 14764/32845
St Mary's 10735/32845
Hinksey Park 9778/32845
Carfax 9528/32845
St Clement's 6396/32845
Reader Opinion:

Oxford: the ugly truth revealed!

Your Health in Oxford

If you are thinking of moving to Oxford, you want to know if the place is likely to put you on a downward spiral of ill health. We've taken the healh question from the latest census to find out and how Oxford compares to its neighbouring local authorities. People were asked to rate their current health from very bad to very good;

Town Very Bad Bad
Oxford (Oxford) 0.85% 2.76%
Cherwell 0.84% 3%
West Berkshire 0.68% 2.48%
South Oxfordshire 0.73% 2.62%

The English Indices of Deprivation also has health statistics for Oxford. They measures the risk of premature death and the impairment of quality of life through poor physical or mental health, lovely! We've collated an average rank for all the Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA) in each ward in and around Oxford. The table below shows ten wards in this area, from the best to the worst;

Ward Average rank in England
North (Best) 31338/32845
St Margaret's 31059/32845
Jericho and Osney 22596/32845
Iffley Fields 20865/32845
Hinksey Park 17970/32845
St Mary's 16880/32845
St Clement's 15405/32845
Carfax 14452/32845
Churchill 14290/32845
Reader Opinion:

Witney - a truly godforsaken Oxfordshire Sh*thole

Deprivation in Oxford

Using the English Indices of Deprivation statistics, we've collated the average Index of Multiple Deprivation rank of all the LSOAs in the wards in and around Oxford. In layman's terms, this is how rough the ward is based on mutiple measures of deprivation including; employment, income, health, crime, housing and outside space.

Ward Average rank in England
North (Best) 30316/32845
St Margaret's 28665/32845
Jericho and Osney 20683/32845
Iffley Fields 20065/32845
Hinksey Park 19560/32845
St Mary's 17577/32845
St Clement's 15161/32845
Churchill 14246/32845
Carfax 13324/32845

Average rent in Oxford

Every six months the Office for National statitics publishes a snapshot of rental costs. These statistics for Oxford are dated September 2021. They are split into three figures, the lower quartile, mean and upper quartile. If you recieve housing benefit or the housing benefit section of Universal Credit, the lower quartile is at the top limit of what would be affordable. The mean is the average you'd expect to pay for a rental property and the upper quartile is the average rental cost of the most expensive 25% of properties in Oxford.

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Oxford

If you are thinking of moving to Oxford, you'll want to know how much you can earn in a job in the town. The government publish regular statistics on gross weekly pay and pay per hour.

How grim is your Postcode?