Photo: Stephen Craven · CC BY-SA 2.0Swindon beats 81% of UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more on crime per resident
It has more violent crime than 78% of UK towns, and more burglary, vehicle crime and damage than 69%. In a usual year, 35.7 violent and sexual offences and 12.3 incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and damage are logged per 1,000 inhabitants. Counting crimes police recorded inside Swindon’s built-up area from September 2023 to August 2026, it grades C− for safety: #27 of 30 in Wiltshire.
Crimes and reports per 1,000 residents (Census 2021) a year, September 2023 to August 2026.
What stands out about safety in Swindon
Less crime than most places its size
Of 39 UK towns and cities of 129,000 to 248,000 people, Swindon has the 7th lowest rate of graded crime: lower than Cambridge, Watford and York, higher than Poole, Sutton and Bexley. Towns its size ↓
Written from the police.uk and government data on this page. Figures are crimes police recorded, not convictions.
Inside Swindon’s C− for safety
A firm grade. Built on 26,403 graded crimes over three years. The grade adds violent and sexual offences and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident and ranks Swindon against every UK town of 1,000 or more.
Per resident, against all UK towns; beside it, how it compares with towns its size.
Swindon is 7th of 39 UK towns of 129,000 to 248,000
| # | Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Shops & theft | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Richmond upon Thames London | 192,888 | 18.8 | 17.9 | 15.9 | C+ |
| … | ||||||
| 4 | Poole Dorset | 141,009 | 26.2 | 14.4 | 12.5 | C |
| 5 | Sutton London | 208,858 | 27.1 | 14.6 | 13.3 | C |
| 6 | Bexley London | 246,074 | 26.1 | 17.5 | 14.3 | C |
| 7 | Swindon Wiltshire | 183,687 | 35.7 | 12.3 | 13.8 | C− |
| 8 | Warrington Cheshire | 174,968 | 38.8 | 10.1 | 10.8 | C− |
| 9 | Kingswood and Fishponds Gloucestershire | 160,280 | 36 | 13.4 | 15.2 | C− |
| 10 | Oxford Oxfordshire | 170,799 | 37 | 15.1 | 32.3 | C− |
| … | ||||||
| 39 | Westminster London | 203,571 | 81.4 | 42.3 | 254.6 | D− |
Safety letters rank against every UK town of 1,000 or more; the order here is context only.
Graded crime per 1,000 residents a year, September 2023 to August 2026, counting from the least: towns ranked near Swindon, and others in Wiltshire.
What police recorded in the last 12 months
Against the typical town its size, Swindon runs highest on bicycle theft (1 per 1,000 against 0.9). Drugs and burglary sit below it.
Show as a table
| Category | In the grade | Reports | Per 1,000 | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence & sexual offences | Violent | 6,440 | 35.1 | 38.6 |
| Anti-social behaviour | not graded | 3,448 | 18.8 | 17.5 |
| Public order | not graded | 1,394 | 7.6 | 7.4 |
| Shoplifting | not graded | 1,364 | 7.4 | 10.3 |
| Criminal damage & arson | Home & vehicle | 1,157 | 6.3 | 7.5 |
| Other theft | not graded | 793 | 4.3 | 6.6 |
| Vehicle crime | Home & vehicle | 666 | 3.6 | 4.9 |
| Drugs | not graded | 433 | 2.4 | 3.8 |
| Other crime | not graded | 344 | 1.9 | 2.1 |
| Burglary | Home & vehicle | 338 | 1.8 | 3.4 |
| Bicycle theft | not graded | 187 | 1 | 0.9 |
| Possession of weapons | Violent | 170 | 0.9 | 1.1 |
| Robbery | Violent | 146 | 0.8 | 1.4 |
| Theft from the person | not graded | 114 | 0.6 | 0.7 |
“Violent” is police.uk’s violence and sexual offences (which includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury), robbery and possession of weapons. Anti-social behaviour isn’t a crime category; shoplifting and other theft happen mostly in shops and town centres rather than to residents, so neither counts in the grade.
September 2025 to August 2026, per 1,000 residents. The tick on each bar is the typical (median) town among UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more.
Lowest recorded crime in Priory Vale, Shaw and Covingham and Dorcan; highest in Eastcott
| Ward | Residents | Violent | Homes & vehicles | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Priory Vale | 12,738 | 16.5 | 4.5 | |
| Shaw | 10,948 | 15.3 | 7 | |
| Covingham and Dorcan | 8,798 | 17.9 | 5.7 | |
| St Andrews | 14,983 | 23.6 | 5.1 | |
| Haydon Wick | 12,047 | 22.9 | 7.1 | |
| Purton | 2,679 | 26 | 6.3 | |
| Chiseldon and Lawn | 4,555 | 28.3 | 13 | |
| Rodbourne Cheney | 12,699 | 31 | 10.6 | |
| Lydiard and Freshbrook | 11,009 | 32.5 | 10.8 | |
| Liden, Eldene and Park South | 11,418 | 33.5 | 11.1 | |
| Mannington and Western | 11,196 | 31.8 | 16 | |
| Old Town | 11,167 | 40.5 | 11.2 | |
| Gorse Hill and Pinehurst | 11,798 | 41.7 | 15.9 | |
| Penhill and Upper Stratton | 5,997 | 44.9 | 13.6 | |
| Walcot and Park North | 13,716 | 50.9 | 14.7 | |
| Central | 15,424 | 54.3 | 22.8 | |
| Eastcott | 12,024 | 67.4 | 24.9 |
| At or near | Reports | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| Car parks | 2,538 | 30% violent |
| Supermarkets | 2,227 | 54% shoplifting & theft |
| Shopping areas | 1,968 | 43% shoplifting & theft |
| Petrol stations | 592 | 31% violent |
| Hospitals | 441 | 51% violent |
| Nightclubs | 362 | 40% violent |
| Sports and recreation grounds | 224 | 46% violent |
| Bus and coach stations | 198 | 33% violent |
| College and university buildings | 157 | 44% violent |
A ward’s rate counts crimes where they happened, not where victims live, so Eastcott records 2.1× the violent crime per resident of the rest of Swindon. police.uk places each crime at an anonymous map point; some are named for the kind of place (a supermarket, a car park), and each row adds up every place of that kind in Swindon. We show only these, never streets or homes.
Crimes per 1,000 residents a year by council ward (the part of each ward inside Swindon’s built-up area), September 2023 to August 2026. Beside it, the public places police.uk named most often.
Crime in Swindon per 1,000 residents
A crime isn’t a victim: one person can report several, and crimes in a town centre often involve visitors rather than residents.
And about 12 burglaries, vehicle crimes or acts of criminal damage, plus 13 shoplifting and theft reports, in the 12 months to August 2026. Each dot is one resident; each coloured dot is one recorded crime.
Police name a suspect about as often as across UK towns
No suspect was identified for 66% of Swindon’s burglaries, vehicle crimes and criminal damage, against 69% across UK towns, and for 13% of violent and sexual offences against 19%. Most violent cases close as “unable to prosecute” (57% here), usually because the victim doesn’t support a prosecution. About 9% of violent and 7% of household crimes reached court.
The latest outcome police.uk shows for each crime recorded in the first of the three years (September 2023 to August 2024), so most cases have closed. 8,717 crimes.
How Swindon’s neighbourhoods rank in England
28% of residents live in the lowest-crime 30% of England’s neighbourhoods, and 18% in the highest-crime 20%. The crime domain scores the risk of violence, burglary, theft and criminal damage where people live, so it can read differently from the town-wide rate, which counts crimes where they happened.
Swindon’s residents by the crime decile of their neighbourhood (LSOA, about 1,500 people) in the English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (crime domain), where 1 is the highest-crime 10% of England’s neighbourhoods and 10 the lowest.
Violent crime held steady over the year
“Towns its size” pools all UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more that police.uk covers each month (Greater Manchester has no data).
Rolling three-month rate, per 1,000 residents a year. In the 12 months to August 2026 against the 12 before: violent +1% (towns its size +2%), homes and vehicles +5% (towns its size -5%), shoplifting and theft -5% (towns its size -3%), anti-social behaviour +6% (towns its size -2%).
Six people died in collisions on Swindon’s roads in 2021–2025
Police recorded 1,239 collisions with injuries inside Swindon in five years, in which six people died (3 were pedestrians). 218 people were killed or seriously injured: 66 on foot and 46 on a bicycle. Two people were killed on a motorway.
That is about what is typical for UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more: at their median rate (1.1 deaths per 100,000 residents a year), a town of Swindon’s size would see about 10 in five years. With numbers this small, a death or two either way changes the picture, so Swindon’s own rate (0.7) is context, not a ranking.
Counting serious injuries too, Swindon had 23.7 people killed or seriously injured per 100,000 residents a year, below the median for UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more (30.3). 30% of them were on foot, against 31% across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more.
Casualties are counted where the collision happened, not where people lived: a main road through town adds through-traffic, and residents’ own risk on roads elsewhere isn’t here. Seriously injured uses the Department for Transport’s adjusted figures, which even out the police forces’ different ways of recording injuries. There’s no national rate here: more than half of road deaths in England and Wales (58%) happen outside every town’s built-up area. Source: DfT road casualty statistics (STATS19), 2021–2025.
Collisions police recorded inside Swindon’s built-up area, 2021–2025. Described here; not part of the Safety Grade.
Crime in the places around Swindon
| Town | People | Violent | Homes & vehicles | Safety |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swindon | 183,687 | 35.7 | 12.3 | C− |
| Stratton St Margaret | 20,689 | 29.5 | 11.8 | C |
| Broad Blunsdon | 6,507 | 20.8 | 7.4 | B |
| Wroughton | 7,276 | 17 | 7.8 | B+ |
| Purton | 3,193 | 15.6 | 4.9 | A− |
| Wanborough | 1,737 | 6.7 | 4.8 | A+ |
| Chiseldon | 2,033 | 24.9 | 9.7 | B− |
| Royal Wootton Bassett | 13,002 | 22.6 | 8.5 | B− |
Swindon records more graded crime per resident than every neighbour in the table. Stratton St Margaret, 2 miles away, records 29.5 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year (3-year average), against Swindon’s 35.7.
Per 1,000 residents a year, the same three years. Tap a town for its safety page.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- Big public sites inside the boundary. police.uk counted 441 at or near a hospital over three years. They count in Swindon’s rate, as they would for any town that has them.
- Where crimes happen, not where victims live. police.uk places each crime at a point near where it happened. Town centres with shops, stations, a hospital and nightlife record more crime per resident, and residents of nearby villages who come in to shop or go out are part of that count.
- Bigger towns record more per resident. Across UK towns, recorded crime per resident rises steeply with size, more than in the U.S., so a city’s grade sits low against the whole UK. The “towns its size” figures show where Swindon sits among towns like it; they are context and don’t change the grade.
- Points are approximate. police.uk moves each point to the nearest of a set of anonymous map points, so crimes near the edge of the built-up area can fall either side of it.
Questions about safety in Swindon
Is Swindon safe?
Police recorded 35.7 violent and sexual offences and 12.3 burglaries, vehicle crimes and acts of criminal damage per 1,000 residents a year over the three years to August 2026 (police.uk, inside Swindon’s built-up area). That earns a C− for safety: less crime per resident than 24% of UK towns. Among 39 UK towns of 129,000 to 248,000 people, Swindon is 7th from the least crime.
What are the safest areas of Swindon?
By council ward, Priory Vale, Shaw and Covingham and Dorcan record the least violent and household crime per resident: 16.5, 15.3 and 17.9 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 a year (3-year average), against 67.4 in Eastcott.
Is crime going up in Swindon?
In the 12 months to August 2026, against the 12 months before, violent crime held steady, burglary, vehicle crime and damage held steady, shoplifting and theft held steady and anti-social behaviour rose 6%. Across UK towns and cities of 50,000 or more, violent crime held steady.
Is Swindon city centre safe at night?
police.uk placed 362 crimes and reports at or near nightclubs in three years, 40% of them violent, and Eastcott ward records 67.4 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 of its residents a year. Over the last two years, violent crime peaked in July and was lowest in November.
What is the most common crime in Swindon?
Violence & sexual offences: 6,440 in the 12 months to August 2026, which in police.uk includes harassment, stalking and assault without injury. Next came public order (1,394) and shoplifting (1,364), with 3,448 reports of anti-social behaviour.
Sources: data.police.uk street-level crime, 36 months to August 2026, points inside the built-up-area boundary · ONS Census 2021, output areas summed to the ONS 2022 built-up area · MHCLG English Indices of Deprivation 2025, crime domain by LSOA (residents from ONS Census 2021) · Department for Transport road casualty statistics (STATS19), collisions 2021–2025, points inside the built-up-area boundary · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.