County ranking
Best places to live in West Sussex
30 towns ranked by overall liveability score, from official UK data.
We score 33 West Sussex towns with a population above 3,000 and data in at least 8 of our 9 categories. Here are the top 30, ranked by overall score. Top of the list is Horsham at 70/100, two points ahead of second-placed Worthing (68). Above 65/100, which roughly one in eight UK towns this size reaches, West Sussex has four: Horsham (70), Worthing (68), Haywards Heath (65) and Southwick (Adur) (65).
Across all 33 qualifying towns the county median is 51/100, 3 points below the 54/100 median for UK towns of this size. On price, Worthing is the top five's cheapest at a median of £348,000. Southwick (Adur), also in the top five, runs to £450,000. Southwick (Adur)'s fourth place leans heavily on one category: transport, at 79/100 against a national town median of 21/100, far further ahead of the norm than its lifestyle, the next strongest. Category-by-category detail is on the pages for Horsham, Worthing and Haywards Heath.
| # | Town | Score | Strongest categories | Population | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Horsham | 70 | Lifestyle 76 Schools 65 | 44,231 | £390,000 |
| 2 | Worthing | 68 | Healthcare 77 Transport 80 | 103,159 | £348,000 |
| 3 | Haywards Heath | 65 | Healthcare 66 Lifestyle 56 | 33,995 | £425,500 |
| 4 | Southwick (Adur) | 65 | Transport 79 Lifestyle 62 | 12,718 | £450,000 |
| 5 | East Grinstead | 64 | Lifestyle 59 Healthcare 54 | 24,729 | £392,500 |
| 6 | Lancing and Sompting | 62 | Transport 70 Healthcare 62 | 27,581 | £350,000 |
| 7 | Crawley (Crawley) | 61 | Healthcare 73 Lifestyle 76 | 113,613 | £350,000 |
| 8 | Shoreham-by-Sea | 61 | Transport 69 Lifestyle 62 | 23,233 | £430,000 |
| 9 | Rustington | 59 | Healthcare 56 Lifestyle 56 | 29,265 | £390,000 |
| 10 | Burgess Hill | 58 | Lifestyle 62 Transport 60 | 30,202 | £382,500 |
| 11 | Bognor Regis | 54 | Lifestyle 63 Transport 62 | 61,140 | £325,000 |
| 12 | Fishbourne (Chichester) | 54 | Lifestyle 57 Transport 56 | 3,206 | £460,000 |
| 13 | Chichester | 53 | Lifestyle 71 Transport 67 | 28,073 | £374,000 |
| 14 | Southbourne | 53 | Transport 46 Schools 38 | 3,937 | £411,250 |
| 15 | Southwater | 53 | Lifestyle 51 Economic health 83 | 10,731 | £432,500 |
| 16 | Crawley Down | 51 | Healthcare 42 Economic health 84 | 5,218 | £462,500 |
| 17 | Littlehampton | 51 | Lifestyle 65 Healthcare 57 | 19,629 | £300,000 |
| 18 | Henfield | 49 | Lifestyle 47 Healthcare 43 | 4,858 | £520,000 |
| 19 | Storrington | 48 | Lifestyle 46 Environment 76 | 8,782 | £400,000 |
| 20 | Tangmere | 48 | Broadband 81 Healthcare 31 | 3,613 | £339,000 |
| 21 | Hassocks and Hurstpierpoint | 47 | Lifestyle 43 Transport 41 | 12,415 | £535,000 |
| 22 | Midhurst | 47 | Transport 53 Environment 79 | 3,496 | £405,000 |
| 23 | Pulborough | 47 | Lifestyle 45 Healthcare 36 | 3,892 | £357,500 |
| 24 | Steyning | 47 | Healthcare 29 Lifestyle 31 | 5,011 | £482,500 |
| 25 | Billingshurst | 46 | Lifestyle 50 Environment 76 | 6,384 | £405,000 |
| 26 | East Wittering | 45 | Lifestyle 35 Healthcare 28 | 5,838 | £470,000 |
| 27 | West Chiltington | 45 | Lifestyle 51 Economic health 82 | 3,263 | £820,000 |
| 28 | Selsey | 44 | Healthcare 34 Lifestyle 37 | 10,533 | £360,500 |
| 29 | Wick (Arun) | 43 | Lifestyle 60 Transport 52 | 5,329 | £287,500 |
| 30 | Arundel | 42 | Lifestyle 48 Transport 40 | 3,057 | £425,000 |
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 West Sussex
The ranking above uses one weighting. Change any control below to re-rank all 33 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.
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How this ranking was built
Every settlement in West Sussex 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. West Sussex has 33 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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