The best places to raise a family across the UK

House prices, job opportunities and the quality of schools all influence where you might choose to settle down with your family. So, we've crunched the numbers across England, Scotland and Wales to reveal where the best places to raise a family are, looking at everything from housing and healthcare to education, living costs, road safety and community. 

To find the best places to raise a family across the UK, we looked beyond the obvious factors like house prices and school results. We scored local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales on the things that shape day-to-day family life: how affordable housing is, what parents earn, how much childcare costs, access to GPs and dentists, exam results, green and open space nearby, road safety and community amenities like libraries. Each area was awarded an overall score out of 100 based on its performance across all factors, enabling us to compare and rank hundreds of towns, cities and counties side by side.  

Key findings  

• Telford and Wrekin ranks as the best place in England to raise a family, scoring 61 out of 100, thanks to strong performances across housing, green space and childcare affordability 

• In Scotland, the Shetland Islands take the top spot with a score of 73.70, scoring strongly across pay, road safety and community 

• In Wales, Neath Port Talbot leads the way, scoring 65.98 with strong scores across road safety and community  

• Housing affordability remains one of the biggest factors for family-friendly hotspots, with average property prices in England ranging from £131,342 to £1.25 million 

• Access to healthcare varies hugely by area, with some locations offering more than twice the dental and GP provision of others  

• Childcare costs vary enormously by area, from £5.18 an hour in Darlington to £12.56 an hour in Kensington and Chelsea, more than double, for the same two-to-four age childcare 

Best Places to Raise a Family in England  

Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire takes the top spot in England, scoring 61 out of 100. The area has one of the strongest Housing Scores in the country (18.15) - based on its average house price of £216,685 and average council tax of £2,256; it also has one of the best Environment Scores, with plenty of access to green and blue space, and a higher-than-average Childcare Affordability Score.  

The West Midlands’ Solihull is close behind in second (60.99), with an average annual salary of £46,896 and scoring highly for Childcare Affordability too, with childcare on average costing £6.29 an hour. The area has a crime rate of 51per 1,000 (April 2024–March 2025) and also seen a 16% drop in road casualties (2023 - 2024), although it doesn’t score as well on factors such as healthcare and education compared to other areas in the top 15.  

St Helens in Merseyside takes third position (60.35) with the best Education Score of the top three (6.01) and a below-average house price of £182,923, though it does have one of the lowest Road Safety Scores in the top five and one of the lowest crime rates of the top 15, with 47.8 per 1,000. York (60.13), ranking fourth, stands out for healthcare access, posting the best Healthcare Score of the top 15 (7.37 out of 8) with an impressive 20.5 dental practices and 17.9 GPs per 100,000 people - among the highest in English top rankings.  

Berkshire’s Windsor and Maidenhead (59.91) is the most expensive unitary authority area to make the top five with an average house price of £584,743, more than double every other top five entry, but it also boasts strong Pay (10.71), Road Safety (3.67) and Community (4) Scores, which help secure its top five position despite its higher property prices. 

The top 15 locations to raise a family in England  

Best Places to Raise a Family in Scotland 

The Shetland Islands score higher than anywhere else in Scotland, with its tight-knit community among its population of 23,190, and strong local schools proving to be a winning combination for families - despite its remote location. It also recorded just 17.9 crimes per 1,000 people in 2024/25 - one of the lowest rates of any area in this study. North Ayrshire and North Lanarkshire aren't far behind, both scoring above 70, suggesting the west of Scotland is a particularly strong region for family life. 

The Shetland Islands boasts the maximum possible Road Safety Score (10 out of 10), with the biggest fall in road casualties, down 45.8% (2023-2024), plus the highest Pay Score of the Scottish top 15 with an average annual salary of £46,527. It also has the lowest council tax bill of the top six (£1,488), helping offset an average house price of £200,201. 

North Ayrshire (72.41) scores strongly in housing (37.96) with an average house price of £136,435, below the Scottish top 15 average of £167,257 and the area also ranks highly in Community too (7.41), recording 56.7 crimes per 1,000 people (2024-2025).  North Lanarkshire (71.67) has the strongest Housing Score of the entire top three (41.67) with an average house price of £156,327 and scores well for Pay, with an average annual salary of £41,070. 

West Dunbartonshire (68.80) offers the cheapest housing of the top four, with an average price of £124,444 and scores well for Pay, with an average salary of £40,011. South Ayrshire rounds off the top five, scoring 61.3 - although average salaries are £43,076 (some of the highest in the country) house prices are higher, sitting on average at £171,288 - meaning affordability isn’t as strong as other parts of Scotland. It does, however, record the second-lowest crime rate of the top five at 46 per 1,000. 

The top 15 locations to raise a family in Scotland 

Best Places to Raise a Family in Wales 

Neath Port Talbot takes the top spot in Wales as the best overall place to raise a family, and it's a well-rounded winner scoring 65.98 out of 100. It scores well in Housing affordability (28.57) and Community (6.86), along with decent healthcare access. It also has one of the strongest road safety records in the index, with road casualties down over 20% between 2023 and 2024, and a crime rate of 79.3 per 1,000.  

Torfaen isn't far behind in second (64.62) although it has a higher average house price of £201,540, this is offset with a strong Pay Score, with an average annual salary of £39,170. Road Safety is also on the rise, with road casualties falling 7.3%. 

Carmarthenshire claims third (61.38) scoring strongly in housing (30.33) and community (6.48). Healthcare access is its Achilles' heel however, with just 7.9 dental practices per 100,000 people, it does have the lowest Healthcare Score of any location in the Welsh top 15. Swansea ranks fourth, scoring 60.4, thanks to its healthcare access (10.9), it’s the sixth best area in Wales with 16 dental practices per 100,000 people. 

Caerphilly, which ranks fifth, has the strongest overall Housing Score of the entire Welsh top 15, thanks to a lower average house price (£198,809) paired with the cheapest council tax bill in the top five (£2,083) and healthy average salaries of £35,367.  

Flintshire has one of the best Road Safety Scores on the list, with road casualties down 33.8%. And for healthcare access specifically, Merthyr Tydfil stands out with by far the most dental practices per capita anywhere in Wales, 23.7 per 100,000 people, nearly double the rate of most other areas in the top 15.  

The top 15 locations to raise a family in Wales 

Area Spotlight: Best Places for Affording a Family Home  

Housing costs are one of the biggest financial commitments families have, so for many parents it’s a leading factor when choosing where to settle.  

England 

In England, Sunderland comes out on top, with an average house price of £145,921 which is among the lowest in England. Stoke-on-Trent (22.53) and South Tyneside (20.96) follow close behind, both pairing lower property prices with below-average council tax.  

The top five locations for affordable homes in England: 

Scotland 

North of the border, Inverclyde leads the way at £108,689 on average, the cheapest of any area in the Scottish top 15. Na h-Eileanan Siar (£149,252) and West Dunbartonshire (£124,444) aren't far off, combining similarly low prices with strong Housing Scores overall. 

The top five locations for affordable homes in Scotland: 

Wales 

In Wales, Caerphilly takes the top spot with the strongest Housing Score of the Welsh top 15, with an average price of £198,809. Rhondda Cynon Taf and Blaenau Gwent have lower average prices, though score slightly lower once council tax and running costs are factored in.  

The top five locations for affordable homes in Wales: 

Area Spotlight: Best Places for Affording Childcare 

Childcare can end up costing more than rent or a mortgage for many working families, so we looked at the mean hourly rate parents pay for a two-to-four-year-old, and how far that stretches against the area’s average income. 

We've used figures from the government’s Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers, which includes responses from Ofsted-registered childminders, school-based providers and group-based providers, and focuses on the rate parents pay directly for hours beyond their free government funded hours. We then calculated an ‘affordability’ percentage by comparing these fees to the average gross hourly pay in each area, before combining the two to create an overall ‘Childcare Affordability Score’. 

Based on the hourly childcare cost, Darlington comes out cheapest at £5.18 an hour, less than half the £12.56 charged in Kensington and Chelsea - the most expensive area in the study. The England-wide average sits at £7.13 an hour. 

For families weighing up a move, lower house prices don’t always mean a more affordable cost of living, especially once bills like childcare are added in - as these can add up, and even more so for parents with more than one child in childcare at the same time. Our recent research on the cost of raising children revealed that more than half (51%) of parents say they now rely on grandparents or family for help because of the cost of formal childcare.  

The cost of childcare across England: 

Area Spotlight: Best Places for Accessing Healthcare 

Good schools and affordable homes are important to consider, but it’s also essential you and your family can access their GP appointment or NHS dentist. We compared England and Wales on dental practices and GPs per 100,000 people to find out where access is more readily available 

England 

The City of Westminster comes out on top, with the best combined dental and GP provision of any area in England – scoring 8 out of 8. Kensington and Chelsea (7.9) follows close behind in second, and York leads outside London  with a score of 7.4 out of 8.  

The top five locations for accessing healthcare in England: 

Wales 

In Wales, Gwynedd takes the lead with 15 dental practices and 19 GPs per 100,000 people – nearly double the provision of some other areas in the study. Blaenau Gwent ranks second, scoring 14.6 followed by Denbighshire (14.6). Merthyr Tydfil ranks highly for dental practices, however, it has fewer GPs per capita and so scores 3.6 overall.   

The top five locations for accessing healthcare in Wales: 

Area Spotlight: Best Places for Education  

Good schools are often one of the biggest factors for parents. Beyond exam results, families tend to weigh up class sizes, Ofsted or Estyn ratings, the number of outstanding-rated primary and secondary schools nearby, and how easy it is to get a place at a preferred school without a lengthy waiting list or a house-price premium for the catchment area. 

The top five locations for Education in England: 

 We also compared England's local authorities on average A-level point score per entry (APS) - Scotland and Wales don't currently publish a directly comparable score, so this looks at England only.  

Buckinghamshire tops the table, with the highest average A-level point score of any area in England (40.37) and the best Education Score overall (7.80 out of 8). Notably, only Rutland makes it into the top 15 – with top school performance tending to sit alongside a higher cost of living, and the strongest all-round places for families are usually the ones that balance ‘good’ (rather than ‘exceptional’) schools with affordable housing and childcare. 

Whichever area you're weighing up, one thing stays the same wherever you settle: making sure your family is financially protected if the worst happens. A life insurance policy can give you the peace of mind that your family is looked after, whatever life throws your way – so take a few minutes to compare life insurance quotes and find the best cover for you and your loved ones today.  

Methodology 

We built a family-friendliness index covering local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales, scoring each area across up to nine categories: housing, travel costs, pay, green and blue space access, childcare, healthcare, education, road safety and community. Like for like authority data isn’t available across England, Scotland and Wales, so each nation's overall score is built from the categories with usable data for that country, weighted so every score sits on a comparable 100-point scale:

England: Housing (28), Travel (12), Pay (12), Green space (12), Childcare (12), Healthcare (8), Education (8), Road Safety (4), Community (4)

Scotland: Housing (50), Pay (30), Road Safety (10), Community (10)

Wales: Housing (42), Pay (25), Healthcare (17), Road Safety (8), Community (8)

Data was drawn from a range of government and public sources, including the Office for National Statistics (house prices, pay,  population), NHS Digital and NHS England (GP and dental practice numbers, referral-to-treatment waiting times), the Department for Education (A-level results, school admissions, and childcare cost and provider survey data), Nomis (the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings), gov.uk (access to green and blue space, reported road casualties) and the Library Campaign's directory of UK libraries. All figures are the most recent available at the time of writing (2026).

Childcare costs are based on mean parent-paid hourly fees (i.e. hours not covered by free government hours) for children aged 2-4 based on local authority. Data has been taken from the 2025 Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers (SCEYP), including responses from Ofsted-registered childminders, school-based providers and group-based providers (playgroups, day nurseries, voluntary/community settings).

The overall education score comes from a combination of average point score per entry (APS), average first preference rate and % of applicants vs total admission places available.

This study covers England, Scotland and Wales.