A guided tour
How BritPlace works.
Five steps from a blank search to a shortlist you can defend, with every score traceable back to a published UK dataset.
The journey
From blank search to a shortlist, in five steps.
Most people take a weekend. You can finish over a coffee.
- 1
Start anywhere: search, browse, or quiz
Type a postcode, council, or town name into search. Browse all areas if you have a region in mind, or jump straight to Find My Match to let priorities lead the way.
- 2
Open an area page and read the picture
An overall score (0 to 100), nine dimension scores, lived-experience tags, a boundary map, and a trends panel showing how prices, population and crime are moving. Each score links back to its raw source.
- 3
Tell us what you actually care about
The default score weights the nine dimensions equally. Find My Match re-ranks every area in the country around your priorities, whether that is schools and safety, or cheap rent and a short commute.
- 4
Compare your finalists side by side
Heart any area to add it to your shortlist, then open Compare to see two to four areas in a single table: scores, prices, schools, weather, the lot.
- 5
Save, track, and follow the data over time
Create a free account to keep your shortlist across devices, set alerts when scores or prices change, and export a PDF report to share with a partner, an agent, or anyone helping you decide.
Anatomy of an area page
What every section means.
Each block on an area page answers a different question.
Overall score ring
A 0 to 100 average across the nine dimensions. Useful for a quick read, but the dimension breakdown below is where the real story is.
Nine dimension scores
Affordability, safety, weather, green space, amenities, commute, education, environment, and health. Each normalised against UK-wide 2nd and 98th percentile benchmarks.
Lived-experience tags
Short labels like "coastal", "commuter belt", "student town", or "green-and-leafy". Some are auto-derived from the data, some hand curated for places that warrant it.
Postcode boundary map
Towns and councils contain very different postcode districts. The map breaks the area down so you can see exactly where the affordability or safety score is coming from. Neighbouring councils appear as dashed outlines, so you can spot where a great postcode sits right on a council boundary.
Trends panel
90-day and 12-month direction of travel for prices, population and crime. A high score in a falling area is a different bet to a high score in a rising one.
Reviews and lived experience
Verified residents rate the area on the things data cannot capture: neighbourliness, noise after dark, the quality of a Saturday morning. Read alongside the scores, not instead of them.
Cost-of-living check
A one-click jump into the cost calculator with the area pre-loaded. Compare what your salary or budget actually buys here versus where you live now.
Similar and nearby areas
If the headline area is not quite right, the bottom of the page suggests neighbours and statistical lookalikes worth a click.
Personalisation
The same area, seen through your lens.
A "good place to live" is not a single number. It depends on whose life you are scoring it for.
Profile
The growing family
Education, safety and green space carry the most weight. Affordability matters, commute is a tradeoff. The match quiz pushes strong-school commuter towns to the top.
Profile
The remote worker
Affordability, environment, broadband and amenities lead. Commute drops to near zero. Coastal towns and small cities the default ranking buries suddenly look like the obvious answer.
Profile
The downsizer
Health access, walkability, climate and amenities take precedence, with affordability tuned to a different budget. The list reorders toward calmer, well-served places.
Get more from it
Tips for better results.
Small habits that turn a quick browse into a confident decision.
Run the match quiz first
The default ranking is honest but generic. Two minutes in Find My Match reorders 3,500 areas around what matters to you. Re-run it any time your situation changes.
Compare, do not just shortlist
Pick two or three areas you like and open them in Compare. Differences that look small on individual pages often jump out when stacked side by side.
Read the trends, not just the score
A 70 in a falling market is a different proposition to a 70 in a rising one. The trends panel on each area page shows the direction of travel.
Zoom into postcode districts
Big councils and towns hide a lot of variation. Click into the map on any area page to see which postcode districts pull the averages up and which drag them down.
Use reviews to test the data
If the score says "great amenities" but residents disagree, that is a useful signal. Treat reviews and scores as two sources checking each other.
Save your shortlist and visit
Numbers narrow the country to a handful of candidates. The final call deserves a Saturday on the ground. Save your shortlist and bring it with you.
Methodology
How the scores are calculated
The full technical detail: percentile clipping, sigmoid curves, trend adjustments, custom weighting, geographic levels.
Read the methodology
Data sources
105+ datasets, all named and linked
Every dataset we use, where it came from, what licence it sits under, and how often we refresh it.
See the sources
Ready when you are
Ready to find your next neighbourhood?
Tell us what matters and we will rank every UK area around your priorities.