Top 50Highest crime

The 50 towns and cities with the highest crime in the UK

London, City of Westminster and Blackpool have the highest crime of 989 UK towns and cities we can compare, measured by how serious the crime recorded around their centre is per resident.

See also: the safest towns, or every town in the A to Z.

Towns and cities with the highest crime

Rank	Town	Council	Safety (out of 10)	Crime vs England and Wales
1	London (city)		1	4.4×
2	City of Westminster (city)	Westminster	1	4.0×
3	Blackpool	Blackpool	1	4.0×
4	Middlesbrough	Middlesbrough	1	4.0×
5	Belfast	Belfast	1	3.4×
6	Birkenhead	Wirral	1	3.4×
7	Stockton-on-Tees	Stockton-on-Tees	1	3.2×
8	Rhyl	Denbighshire	1	3.0×
9	City of London (city)	City of London	1	2.9×
10	Great Yarmouth	Great Yarmouth	1	2.9×
11	Hartlepool	Hartlepool	1	2.8×
12	Halifax	Calderdale	1	2.6×
13	Chatham	Medway	1	2.6×
14	Grimsby	North East Lincolnshire	1	2.6×
15	Birmingham (city)	Birmingham	1	2.5×
16	Margate	Thanet	1	2.5×
17	Gateshead	Gateshead	1	2.5×
18	Leeds (city)	Leeds	1	2.5×
19	Huddersfield	Kirklees	1	2.4×
20	Liverpool (city)	Liverpool	1	2.4×
21	Northampton	West Northamptonshire	1	2.4×
22	Kingston upon Hull (city)	City of Kingston upon Hull	1	2.4×
23	St Helens	St. Helens	1	2.3×
24	Rotherham	Rotherham	1	2.3×
25	Dover	Dover	1	2.3×
26	Skegness	East Lindsey	1	2.3×
27	Sheerness	Swale	1	2.3×
28	Doncaster (city)	Doncaster	1	2.2×
29	Scunthorpe	North Lincolnshire	1	2.2×
30	Mansfield	Mansfield	1	2.2×
31	Lowestoft	East Suffolk	1	2.2×
32	Clacton-on-Sea	Tendring	1	2.2×
33	Bradford (city)	Bradford	1	2.1×
34	Bournemouth	Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole	1	2.1×
35	Burnley	Burnley	1	2.1×
36	Warrington	Warrington	1	2.1×
37	Barnsley	Barnsley	1	2.1×
38	Barrow-in-Furness	Westmorland and Furness	1	2.1×
39	Ipswich	Ipswich	1	2.0×
40	Rochester	Medway	1	2.0×
41	South Shields	South Tyneside	1	2.0×
42	Llandudno	Conwy	1	2.0×
43	King's Lynn	King's Lynn and West Norfolk	1	2.0×
44	Walsall	Walsall	1	2.0×
45	Keighley	Bradford	1	2.0×
46	West Bromwich	Sandwell	1	2.0×
47	Widnes	Halton	1	2.0×
48	Redcar	Redcar and Cleveland	1	1.9×
49	Castleford	Wakefield	1	1.9×
50	Telford	Telford and Wrekin	1	1.9×

Crime vs England and Wales: 1.0× is the average; 0.5× is half as much crime, weighted by severity, per resident.

How the ranking works: crime recorded by the police (police.uk data to August 2026) within 1.5 km of a town's centre or 3 km of a city's, each crime weighted by the ONS Crime Severity Score (a burglary counts for more than a shoplifting, anti-social behaviour not at all) per resident a year in that circle: the same figure and Safety score each town's page shows. Left out: circles with fewer than 5,000 residents (a few crimes would swing them), circles that are mostly a busy town centre (shoppers and visitors, few residents), and places whose police data stopped years ago (Greater Manchester Police has published none since 2019). Scotland is not ranked: it has no Safety score yet, as Police Scotland does not publish crime by street.

Council areas with the highest crime

Rank	Council	Nation	Safety (out of 10)	Crime vs England and Wales
1	City of London	England	1	5.7×
2	Westminster	England	1	3.9×
3	Camden	England	1	2.1×
4	Blackpool	England	1	2.0×
5	Middlesbrough	England	1	1.8×
6	Kensington and Chelsea	England	1	1.7×
7	Islington	England	1	1.7×
8	Bradford	England	2	1.6×
9	Hackney	England	2	1.6×
10	City of Kingston upon Hull	England	2	1.6×
11	Birmingham	England	2	1.6×
12	Southwark	England	2	1.6×
13	Haringey	England	2	1.6×
14	Liverpool	England	2	1.5×
15	Leeds	England	2	1.5×
16	Thanet	England	2	1.5×
17	Southampton	England	2	1.5×
18	Hartlepool	England	2	1.5×
19	Lambeth	England	2	1.5×
20	Nottingham	England	2	1.5×

The whole council area, every neighbourhood in it; Scotland and councils whose police data stopped years ago are left out.