How to use this website - back to top
We have produced many tools to help narrow down that tedious search process when looking for somewhere to live. In order to not add to the hassle everything you find here has been tailored to be as simple to use as possible.
Currently updated for all locations in England, Wales and Scotland we will be updating in due course to include Northern Ireland.
Please follow these steps to use the mapping feature of this site.
- 1Begin by entering a location into the location box. If it is hidden, click the 'show location box' button.
- 2You can enter any postcode, street name, or town. You can also click the 'locate me' icon to automatically find your current location.
- 3Next, select a boundary to search within. This can either be a distance measured in miles or kilometers, or by travel time. The travel time setting allows you to select a mode of travel (car, bus/train, bicycle or walking) and the time taken. We will then create a boundary from the center of your chosen location to search for areas within.
- 4Next, click the gear icon (settings icon) in the menu bar to bring out the filtering options. You can use filtering options to reduce the areas found to only those matching your chosen preference.
- 5You must turn a filter on for it to be active and then can set the filter using the provided slider. You can easily reset all filters by clicking the 'reset' button at the top.
- 6Filters are applied in order so change the priority to apply certain filters before others. The highest switched on filter in the list will be applied first, and the results will be sorted/ordered by the lowest switched on filter. For example, your main priority may be to find relatively lower house prices, and then lowest crime rate within a boundary - so you would move the house price filter higher in the list and place the crime rate filter lower in the list. This will give you all cheaper areas for house prices and then order by lowest crime rate in that set.
- 7Once you are ready, click 'GO' to begin the search.
We have used public open data sets for crime, transport, education and combine it with information regarding housing, employment and the census to build our database. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the data but try our best to clean and verify. Datasets are updated monthly, aside from the census, which was last conducted in 2011 and is repeated every ten years.
Data is currently updated for all locations in England, Wales and Scotland we will soon integrate Northern Ireland as a separate comparison cluster due to differences in data reporting between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Crime data is based upon actual occurences of the chosen crime type (or combined if overall crime) categorised into sectors of the UK (over 10,000).
House prices are based upon the median advertised house prices in the UK categorised into sectors.
Local jobs are based upon the total number of jobs advertised within a 10 mile catchment of an area and then classes by average salary.
Train stations are based upon national and underground train stations filtered by distance from the center of an area.
Motorway junctions are based upon main motorway network junctions filtered by distance from the center of an area.
Primary school data is based upon government performance data (England & Wales) from which we generate a score and then rank the schools against each other. The score is based upon 'Percentage of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths' and 'Percentage of pupils achieving a high score in reading and maths and working at greater depth in writing'.
Secondary school data is based upon government performance data (England & Wales) from which we generate a score and then rank the schools against each other. The score is based upon 'Percentage of pupils achieving grades A*-C in both English and mathematics GCSEs', 'Percentage of pupils achieving 5+ A*-C or equivalents including A*-C in both English and mathematics GCSEs', 'Percentage of pupils achieving any qualifications' and 'Average number of GCSE and equivalents entries per pupil'.
'A-Level' college data is based upon government performance data (England & Wales) from which we generate a score and then rank the colleges against each other. The score is based upon 'Percentage of A level students achieving at least three a levels at grades AAB or better, at least two of which are in facilitating subjects', 'Percentage of students at the end of 16-18 study who entered for at least one AS or A level qualification' and 'Average point score per A level entry'.
'Vocational' college data is based upon government performance data (England & Wales) from which we generate a score and then rank the colleges against each other. The score is based upon 'Percentage of tech level core aims retained', 'Number of tech level aims (total number of qualifications studied by all students)' and 'Academic value added score'.
Public Green Areas data is based upon the number of publically accessible green areas, and the quality of these areas within 3 miles of the center of an area.