County ranking
Best places to live in Oxfordshire
25 towns ranked by overall liveability score, from official UK data.
25 towns in Oxfordshire clear our data thresholds: a population over 3,000 and real scores in 8 or more of 9 categories. The top 25 are ranked below. There is nothing to choose between the top two: Bicester and Witney both score 66/100. Above 65/100, which roughly one in eight UK towns this size reaches, Oxfordshire has two: Bicester (66) and Witney (66).
The top five span £345,000 in Witney to £450,000 in Oxford on median house price. Witney's second place leans heavily on one category: lifestyle, at 95/100 against a national town median of 21/100, far further ahead of the norm than its healthcare, the next strongest. The listed towns cover 22 points in all, from Bicester on 66 to Shrivenham and Watchfield on 44. Category-by-category detail is on the pages for Bicester, Witney and Oxford.
| # | Town | Score | Strongest categories | Population | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bicester | 66 | Lifestyle 70 Healthcare 53 | 30,860 | £350,000 |
| 2 | Witney | 66 | Lifestyle 95 Healthcare 61 | 30,449 | £345,000 |
| 3 | Oxford | 63 | Healthcare 79 Lifestyle 81 | 160,071 | £450,000 |
| 4 | Didcot | 62 | Lifestyle 60 Healthcare 55 | 26,392 | £350,000 |
| 5 | Kidlington | 59 | Healthcare 50 Lifestyle 52 | 14,936 | £380,000 |
| 6 | Abingdon-on-Thames | 58 | Healthcare 54 Schools 57 | 33,833 | £350,000 |
| 7 | Kennington | 58 | Lifestyle 54 Transport 45 | 4,561 | £495,000 |
| 8 | Wantage | 58 | Broadband 98 Lifestyle 52 | 10,779 | £360,375 |
| 9 | Banbury | 57 | Lifestyle 68 Healthcare 63 | 48,601 | £285,000 |
| 10 | Carterton | 56 | Broadband 89 Schools 48 | 15,779 | £331,000 |
| 11 | Grove (Vale of White Horse) | 55 | Healthcare 44 Lifestyle 45 | 7,659 | £325,000 |
| 12 | Henley-on-Thames | 55 | Lifestyle 54 Healthcare 47 | 12,391 | £606,000 |
| 13 | Thame | 55 | Lifestyle 44 Schools 42 | 12,656 | £411,000 |
| 14 | Wallingford | 55 | Schools 50 Lifestyle 41 | 8,556 | £418,500 |
| 15 | Sonning Common | 52 | Healthcare 40 Economic health 85 | 4,926 | £550,000 |
| 16 | Chipping Norton | 51 | Schools 48 Lifestyle 44 | 6,798 | £380,000 |
| 17 | Eynsham | 50 | Healthcare 33 Lifestyle 32 | 5,065 | £385,000 |
| 18 | Woodstock | 50 | Economic health 89 Healthcare 37 | 3,739 | £415,000 |
| 19 | Bloxham | 49 | Healthcare 42 Broadband 76 | 3,842 | £430,000 |
| 20 | Wheatley | 49 | Economic health 83 Lifestyle 32 | 4,475 | £450,000 |
| 21 | Yarnton | 49 | Transport 42 Schools 39 | 3,135 | £420,000 |
| 22 | Benson | 46 | Healthcare 35 Economic health 84 | 4,755 | £441,250 |
| 23 | Chinnor | 46 | Broadband 81 Economic health 79 | 6,879 | £453,500 |
| 24 | Faringdon | 44 | Healthcare 33 Lifestyle 36 | 7,671 | £329,000 |
| 25 | Shrivenham and Watchfield | 44 | Healthcare 29 Environment 68 | 5,008 | £462,500 |
Ranked on the default weighting, out of 100. Strongest categories are the two furthest above the national median for that category, not simply the two highest numbers. Almost every town scores well on safety, so raw highs would say little.
Find your own best place in Oxfordshire
The ranking above uses one weighting. Change any control below to re-rank all 25 qualifying towns around what you actually care about — who's moving, a minimum on one category, a price ceiling for the type of home you'd buy.
Pick a persona or set a filter to re-rank 25 towns in place.
How this ranking was built
Every settlement in Oxfordshire was scored across 9 categories (safety, schools, healthcare, transport, environment, broadband, lifestyle, economic health and bills) from official sources including Police UK, Ofsted, the CQC, Ofcom, the Environment Agency and MHCLG. Two filters then decide who appears here:
- Population above 3,000. Without a floor the list fills with hamlets of a few dozen people. Oxfordshire has 25 towns above it.
- Real data in at least 8 of 9 categories. Places we can only partly measure are excluded rather than ranked on guesswork.
Counties are ceremonial, and a town belongs to the county its postcodes physically sit in, so border towns land where residents would expect them to.
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