London Borough Checker
Choose your bedroom count, set what matters to you across recorded crime, schools, transport and environment, then set a budget ceiling. We score every London borough on open data, rank your best matches, and let you compare any boroughs you choose — including those outside the top 10. The map recolours live, so this is a tool for exploring, not a one-shot answer.
How boroughs are ranked
Every borough carries five scores, each from 0 to 100, built from published data. Recorded crime comes from the Metropolitan Police. School ratings come from Ofsted. Transport is Transport for London station coverage. Environment is green space and air quality. Affordability is average private rents published by the Office for National Statistics, measured against your budget ceiling. Your weights decide how much each one counts.
The map recolours the moment you move a slider, so you can watch your priorities reshape the city rather than read a fixed list. Below it, your top matches appear as cards, and you can pull any borough into a side-by-side compare — including ones outside the top 10, because the right answer isn't always the highest overall score.
Where you live, costed against what you earn
A borough only fits if you can afford to live there and the commute works. See your whole picture — the boroughs that match, what a month there costs, and the take-home it has to come from — instead of a shortlist with no price tag. Work out your take-home and monthly costs first, then come back and let the ranking do the rest.
Every London borough, scored
This is the whole dataset the ranking runs on. Rent comes from ONS and is what people are actually paying, not what places are advertised at. The five scored columns each run 0–100, and each one says below what its 100 end means — including the crime column, where a high score means fewer recorded crimes.
Every figure below describes a whole borough, not a neighbourhood. One covers streets that feel nothing like each other, so treat this as the starting shortlist rather than the answer.
| Borough | One-bed | Typical rent | Recorded crime | Schools | Transport | Environment | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barking and Dagenham | £1,370 | £1,688 | 79 | 71 | 38 | 65 | 64 |
| Barnet | £1,485 | £1,931 | 92 | 81 | 51 | 54 | 59 |
| Bexley | £1,219 | £1,525 | 97 | 0 | 33 | 50 | 0 |
| Brent | £1,559 | £1,990 | 76 | 58 | 62 | 41 | 20 |
| Bromley | £1,302 | £1,673 | 90 | 87 | 50 | 68 | 100 |
| Camden | £1,982 | £2,724 | 40 | 100 | 80 | 29 | 55 |
| Croydon | £1,251 | £1,565 | 82 | 12 | 56 | 55 | 22 |
| Ealing | £1,587 | £2,057 | 82 | 57 | 59 | 54 | 33 |
| Enfield | £1,380 | £1,775 | 79 | 100 | 43 | 59 | 61 |
| Greenwich | £1,527 | £1,949 | 76 | 57 | 56 | 42 | 15 |
| Hackney | £1,967 | £2,615 | 62 | 100 | 69 | 63 | 94 |
| Hammersmith and Fulham | £1,947 | £2,755 | 66 | 100 | 65 | 51 | 84 |
| Haringey | £1,634 | £2,214 | 67 | 83 | 58 | 62 | 50 |
| Harrow | £1,376 | £1,755 | 99 | 81 | 31 | 57 | 50 |
| Havering | £1,216 | £1,565 | 91 | 81 | 19 | 64 | 65 |
| Hillingdon | £1,238 | £1,553 | 75 | 55 | 19 | 55 | 21 |
| Hounslow | £1,558 | £1,922 | 78 | 100 | 40 | 45 | 45 |
| Islington | £2,129 | £2,811 | 55 | 77 | 71 | 55 | 64 |
| Kensington and Chelsea | £2,571 | £3,597 | 49 | 48 | 71 | 26 | 7 |
| Kingston upon Thames | £1,370 | £1,799 | 92 | 100 | 23 | 36 | 34 |
| Lambeth | £1,883 | £2,529 | 64 | 31 | 72 | 40 | 18 |
| Lewisham | £1,446 | £1,816 | 74 | 84 | 69 | 58 | 65 |
| Merton | £1,582 | £2,097 | 97 | 100 | 57 | 70 | 97 |
| Newham | £1,622 | £1,918 | 69 | 100 | 70 | 54 | 71 |
| Redbridge | £1,364 | £1,724 | 86 | 68 | 45 | 48 | 59 |
| Richmond upon Thames | £1,711 | £2,307 | 100 | 100 | 41 | 57 | 74 |
| Southwark | £1,815 | £2,395 | 60 | 87 | 73 | 62 | 60 |
| Sutton | £1,231 | £1,547 | 97 | 80 | 31 | 60 | 78 |
| Tower Hamlets | £1,957 | £2,410 | 67 | 71 | 78 | 66 | 59 |
| Waltham Forest | £1,396 | £1,758 | 82 | 54 | 55 | 49 | 25 |
| Wandsworth | £1,910 | £2,599 | 85 | 72 | 64 | 36 | 62 |
| Westminster | £2,505 | £3,149 | 0 | 100 | 88 | 27 | 26 |
What a 100 means in each column
- Recorded crime — 100 = the fewest recorded crimes per resident of the 32 boroughs, 0 = the most.
- Schools — 100 = the highest share of Good and Outstanding schools, 0 = the lowest.
- Transport — 100 = the best station coverage and quickest trip into the middle of London.
- Environment — 100 = the most green space and cleanest air of the 32.
- Value — 100 = the most you get for your rent compared with similarly-priced boroughs.
Rent is the ONS Price Index of Private Rents, April 2026, published per borough. Recorded crime is every crime the Met logged in the borough across 2025, divided by the people who live there (ONS mid-year estimate). So it's a rate per resident, not a count. It measures what got reported to the police, which isn't the same as your own chances of anything happening. Central boroughs read high because a daytime crowd of workers and visitors gets counted against a small resident population. Schools is the share rated Good or Outstanding by Ofsted, the schools inspectorate. Transport is TfL station coverage and time into the middle of London. Environment covers green space and air quality. Value is what your rent buys compared with similarly-priced boroughs.
Scores are relative to the other boroughs, so a 0 means bottom of the 32 on that measure — not zero schools, or no green space. A 100 means top of the 32, the same way round.
A dash means we don't have that figure, and we'd rather leave the gap than fill it with a guess. The City of London isn't listed at all: fewer than 10,000 people live there, and its rent and crime figures aren't comparable with the other 32.
Common questions
Which London borough should you live in?
- It depends on what you're optimising for and what you can spend. Tell the tool how much you weight recorded crime, schools, transport and environment, set a rent ceiling, and it ranks all 32 boroughs on open data — so the answer reflects your priorities rather than a generic best-of list.
What are the best London boroughs for families?
- Families usually weight schools, recorded crime and green space most heavily. Turn those up and the ranking shifts toward boroughs that score well on Ofsted ratings, recorded crime and access to parks, while still respecting your budget ceiling. Compare your shortlist side by side to weigh the trade-offs.
Which are the cheapest London boroughs to rent in?
- Cheapest one-bed rents are in Havering (about £1,216), Bexley (£1,219) and Sutton (£1,231) — all outer boroughs. For a familiar reference, Greenwich runs about £1,527, and Kensington and Chelsea tops the range near £2,571. Set your budget ceiling and the tool shows which boroughs clear it against what you care about.
How are the boroughs scored?
- Each borough is scored 0–100 (higher is better) from open sources: Metropolitan Police recorded crime, Ofsted ratings, TfL station coverage, and green-space and air-quality data. The budget ceiling uses ONS PIPR average private rents. It's a relative ranking aid, not relocation advice.