County ranking
Best places to live in Worcestershire
18 towns ranked by overall liveability score, from official UK data.
We score 18 Worcestershire towns with a population above 3,000 and data in at least 8 of our 9 categories. Here are the top 18, ranked by overall score. Three towns share first place, all on 60/100: Bromsgrove, Catshill and Worcester. The top five span £252,500 in Worcester to £375,000 in Hollywood on median house price.
There is a sharp drop after 17th, from 44 down to 39, the biggest single step in the table. The listed towns cover 21 points in all, from Bromsgrove on 60 to Kempsey on 39. Category-by-category detail is on the pages for Bromsgrove, Catshill and Worcester.
| # | Town | Score | Strongest categories | Population | Median price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bromsgrove | 60 | Healthcare 69 Transport 58 | 31,559 | £290,000 |
| 2 | Catshill | 60 | Healthcare 52 Transport 54 | 10,421 | £326,000 |
| 3 | Worcester | 60 | Healthcare 70 Transport 70 | 102,836 | £252,500 |
| 4 | Evesham | 59 | Healthcare 61 Lifestyle 63 | 25,215 | £267,500 |
| 5 | Hollywood | 58 | Healthcare 58 Transport 54 | 7,270 | £375,000 |
| 6 | Kidderminster | 58 | Healthcare 64 Transport 62 | 52,835 | £239,000 |
| 7 | Redditch | 58 | Transport 68 Healthcare 64 | 78,520 | £250,000 |
| 8 | Droitwich Spa | 56 | Healthcare 66 Transport 51 | 22,728 | £290,000 |
| 9 | Great Malvern | 56 | Transport 58 Healthcare 51 | 33,536 | £295,000 |
| 10 | Barnt Green | 55 | Transport 53 Economic health 94 | 4,344 | £670,000 |
| 11 | Fernhill Heath | 55 | Schools 53 Transport 49 | 3,655 | £375,000 |
| 12 | Hagley | 54 | Economic health 92 Healthcare 41 | 6,849 | £462,500 |
| 13 | Stourport-on-Severn | 51 | Lifestyle 59 Broadband 88 | 19,113 | £245,000 |
| 14 | Bewdley | 49 | Lifestyle 41 Transport 36 | 7,102 | £283,500 |
| 15 | Alvechurch | 48 | Broadband 81 Transport 39 | 3,217 | £390,000 |
| 16 | Pershore | 46 | Healthcare 49 Lifestyle 40 | 8,298 | £298,500 |
| 17 | Tenbury Wells | 44 | Healthcare 30 Lifestyle 30 | 3,701 | £250,000 |
| 18 | Kempsey | 39 | Bills 49 Schools 23 | 3,395 | £312,500 |
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 Worcestershire
The ranking above uses one weighting. Change any control below to re-rank all 18 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 Worcestershire 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. Worcestershire has 18 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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