County ranking

Best places to live in Wiltshire

25 towns ranked by overall liveability score, from official UK data.

25 Towns listed of 25 that qualify
66 Top score Swindon (Swindon)
51 County median UK median 54
1 Above 65 roughly the UK top eighth

We score 25 Wiltshire towns with a population above 3,000 and data in at least 8 of our 9 categories. Here are the top 25, ranked by overall score. Swindon (Swindon) takes first place with 66/100, putting two points between it and Stratton St Margaret on 64. Above 65/100, which roughly one in eight UK towns this size reaches, Wiltshire has one: Swindon (Swindon) (66).

Across all 25 qualifying towns the county median is 51/100, 3 points below the 54/100 median for UK towns of this size. Swindon (Swindon) is the cheapest way into the top five, with a median house price of £265,000 against £425,000 in Bradford-on-Avon. There is a sharp drop after second, from 64 down to 59, the biggest single step in the table. See the detailed scores for Swindon (Swindon), Stratton St Margaret and Bradford-on-Avon.

The top 25 places to live in Wiltshire, ranked by overall score out of 100
# Town Score Strongest categories Population Median price
1 Swindon (Swindon) 66 Transport 76 Schools 75 168,190 £265,000
2 Stratton St Margaret 64 Transport 75 Schools 74 21,067 £285,000
3 Bradford-on-Avon 59 Lifestyle 52 Transport 50 7,577 £425,000
4 Calne 59 Healthcare 49 Transport 50 17,433 £274,750
5 Wroughton 59 Healthcare 56 Schools 50 5,527 £311,500
6 Royal Wootton Bassett 58 Healthcare 51 Broadband 90 12,892 £290,000
7 Salisbury 58 Transport 64 Lifestyle 64 46,596 £310,000
8 Chippenham (Wiltshire) 57 Healthcare 56 Transport 54 36,627 £302,000
9 Trowbridge 54 Schools 59 Lifestyle 53 35,642 £280,000
10 Amesbury 53 Healthcare 52 Transport 44 8,285 £317,000
11 Highworth 53 Healthcare 38 Schools 41 7,357 £286,000
12 Corsham 52 Healthcare 45 Lifestyle 39 7,747 £350,000
13 Malmesbury 51 Transport 41 Healthcare 32 6,855 £340,000
14 Marlborough 50 Lifestyle 56 Transport 40 8,918 £341,500
15 Westbury (Wiltshire) 50 Transport 52 Lifestyle 44 13,546 £260,000
16 Wilton 50 Transport 50 Healthcare 44 3,796 £348,000
17 Durrington 49 Transport 39 Schools 36 5,431 £340,000
18 Devizes 47 Healthcare 56 Lifestyle 56 16,905 £293,000
19 Melksham 47 Healthcare 44 Lifestyle 39 15,800 £270,250
20 Warminster 47 Schools 49 Transport 35 17,337 £289,500
21 Tidworth 44 Schools 49 Transport 37 3,565 £270,000
22 Bulford 42 Economic health 78 Transport 26 4,381 —
23 Pewsey 42 Environment 78 Transport 31 3,343 £342,500
24 Lyneham 39 Economic health 88 Safety 96 5,318 £238,750
25 Cricklade 37 Environment 72 Economic health 70 3,537 £316,250

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. Median house price covers the last 12 months of Land Registry sales; 1 of these towns had too few sales to publish one.

Find your own best place in Wiltshire

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.

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How this ranking was built

Every settlement in Wiltshire 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:

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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