The Sunday Times has published its annual ranking of the best places to live in the UK. The newspaper’s judges visited areas up and down the nation, rating them on factors ranging from schools, transport and broadband speeds to culture, access to green spaces and the ‘health of the high street’.
The Times ended up with a total of 72 places, including neighbourhoods, villages, towns and entire cities. Among those were 10 regional winners – which together apparently ‘represent everything that’s great about living in Britain’ – and one overall winner.
Named the best of the best was Saffron Walden. The Sunday Times says that the Essex market town ‘used to have a reputation for being stuffy, old-fashioned and expensive’ but that now it is ‘enjoying a swish new lease of life’. Quality schools, historic features, a thriving high street, ‘cool’ independent shops, tasty restaurants and local pride are all cited as reasons for Saffron Walden’s supremacy.
In the regional winners, another Essex place, Chelmsford, triumphed for east of England (behind Saffron Walden, obvs), while Walthamstow was top in London. You can read about all seven neighbourhoods of the capital in the Sunday Times’ list here. For the southeast of England, Petersfield in Hampshire was named best.
In the Midlands, Warwickshire’s Ilmington got a regional nod for being ‘pretty as a picture’ and a ‘blissful example of village life as it should be’, then Chew Valley in Somerset took the prize for the southwest of England for its sustainable local businesses. The northwest was taken by Liverpool suburb Woolton, while Ilkley in West Yorkshire (pictured below) was crowned best in north and northeast of England.
Outside England, the Times’ top place to live in Scotland was North Berwick (which came top in the paper’s list last year), while Swansea’s Gower Peninsula was best in Wales partly due to its ‘cool, creative and sustainable’ independent businesses. County Down’s Dundrum was named the regional winner for Northern Ireland.
Britain’s best places to live in 2025, according to the Sunday Times
Here’s a full list of the best places to live in the UK right now, according to the Times.
- Aberfeldy, Perth and Kinross
- Amersham, Buckinghamshire
- Ashburton, Devon
- Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire
- Bloomsbury, London
- Broughton, Hampshire
- Chelmsford, Essex (regional winner, east of England)
- Chew Valley, Somerset (regional winner, southwest of England)
- Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire
- Crickhowell, Powys
- Cullen, Moray
- Dundrum, County Down (regional winner, Northern Ireland)
- Easingwold, North Yorkshire
- East Dulwich, London
- East Neuk, Fife
- Eccleshall, Staffordshire
- Farnham, Surrey
- Gower Peninsula, Swansea (regional winner, Wales)
- Harborne, Birmingham
- Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire
- Holywood, County Down
- Hove, East Sussex
- Ilkley, West Yorkshire (regional winner, north and northeast of England)
- Ilmington, Warwickshire (regional winner, Midlands)
- Isle of Tiree, Inner Hebrides
- Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria
- Knutsford, Cheshire
- Horsforth, Leeds
- Hotwells and Cilfton Wood, Bristol
- Maenclochog, Pembrokeshire
- Malmesbury, Wiltshire
- Malpas, Cheshire
- Market Harborough, Leicestershire
- Marlow, Buckinghamshire
- Milngavie, East Dumbartonshire
- Morpeth, Northumberland
- Mossley, Greater Manchester
- North Berwick, East Lothian (regional winner, Scotland)
- Norwich, Norfolk
- Oakham, Rutland
- Parbold, Lancashire
- Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan
- Penryn, Cornwall
- Petersfield, Hampshire (regional winner, southeast of England)
- Portstewart, County Londonderry
- Presteigne, Powys
- Reading, Berkshire
- Reepham, Norfolk
- Rhiwbina, Cardiff
- Ripon, North Yorkshire
- Saffron Walden, Essex
- Sevenoaks, Kent
- Sheffield, South Yorkshire
- Sherborne, Dorset
- Shrewsbury, Shropshire
- Southbourne, Dorset
- Stockbridge, Edinburgh
- Stoke Newington, London
- Strathbungo, Glasgow
- Telegraph Hill, London
- Thame, Oxfordshire
- The Heatons, Greater Manchester
- The Shelfords, Greater Manchester
- Twickenham, London
- Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear
- Vale of Clwyd, Denbighshire
- Walthamstow, London (regional winner, London)
- Wembley, London
- Wirksworth, Derbyshire
- Wivenhoe, Essex
- Woodbridge, Suffolk
- Woolton, Liverpool (regional winner, northwest of England)
Read the full article on the Sunday Times website here.
But the Sunday Times aren’t the only ones with things to say about the UK’s best places to live. Here at Time Out we recently revealed Britain’s top 11 food cities, while last year we named three UK neighbourhoods the coolest in the world.
Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time Out UK newsletter for the latest UK news and the best stuff happening across the country.