Best Places to Live 2026 | England & Wales

Garrington Property Finders are delighted to present the Best Places to Live 2026 in England and Wales.

The north-south divide in the property markets of England and Wales is narrower at the start of 2026 than it was a year ago. Throughout 2025, property prices rose across northern England and in much of Wales, but stayed mostly flat, or even fell, in London and the southeast.

Official Land Registry data shows that the average home in England rose in value by 1.4% to reach £291,515, while the average price paid for a home in Wales rose by 1.5% to £210,657.

However, these national averages mask some wide regional variations. Prices fell across London, with the average property in the capital worth 2.4% less than it had been a year before. By contrast, average prices surged 5% in North East England and rose 3.1% in the North West, as well as in Yorkshire and the Humber. 

Amid this multi-speed, multi-direction market, some highly perennially popular hotspots have become better value as prices softened. Meanwhile, many highly desirable locations beyond London’s commuter belt have seen values rise steadily. We’ve analysed the strengths of them all and selected the best of the best for our 2026 Best Places to Live report.

Quicklinks for reviewing the Best Places to Live in 2026

Garrington has analysed the data to pinpoint the best places to live in England and Wales, and created a helpful tool for house hunters to compare and shortlist locations with ease.

Use Garrington’s analysis tool to compare locations

See the top 20 Best Places to Live 2026

How to choose the perfect place to live

If you’re planning to move in 2026, our Best Places to Live guide can help you pinpoint places in the area you’re most interested in that offer an ideal blend of a high quality of life, strong value, and growth potential.

Our data analysts have identified nearly 1450 cities, towns, and villages across England and Wales that all score highly in at least one of five selection criteria: natural environment, wellbeing, heritage and culture, schools and jobs, plus value for money.

As always, we’re making our national ranking available for free, and you can use the interactive tool below to explore the entire league table, whether you’re curious to find out how your current hometown scores or just want some ideas for places where you’ll find the things that matter most to you.

Top ranked locations 2026

At a glance, these are the locations that ranked highest this year – these are the Best Places to Live in England and Wales 2026:

1. Marple, Greater Manchester
2. Rawdon, West Yorkshire
3. St Albans, Hertfordshire
4. Bramhall, Greater Manchester
5. Long Ashton, Somerset
6. Bowdon, Greater Manchester
7. Stoke Gifford, South Gloucestershire
8. Whitnash, Warwickshire
9. Merley, Dorset
10. Poynton, Cheshire

Use Garrington’s analysis tool to compare locations

See the top 20 Best Places to Live 2026

1. Don’t miss Marple

Top of this year’s ranking is Marple, a perennial high-achiever in our annual league table. The picture-postcard town in Greater Manchester came fourth in the 2025 ranking, but rose to the top spot for 2026.

Despite being just nine miles and around 25 minutes from the bright lights of central Manchester, Marple has an understated charm and calm much like the frequently underestimated Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s much-loved sleuth who was named after the town.

With a strong community spirit and two brass bands, a neighbourhood cinema and lots of independent shops, Marple sits at the foot of the Peak District and has miles of canal towpaths and wooded valleys that lifted it to 18th place in the natural beauty category of our ranking.

At £517,119, a typical family home in the town costs well above the English national average. Even though family home prices there rose by 7.6% in the past year, much faster than those in southern England, they remain competitive for a prime area of Greater Manchester, and Marple scooped 27th place in the value for money category.

2. Rawdon’s scenic setting close to Leeds

Second-placed Rawdon in West Yorkshire also offers a blend of great landscapes, panoramic views, and easy access to the city.

Just six miles from the centre of Leeds, the village came 95th in the natural beauty category and represents good value after the price of an average family home dipped by 0.3% over the year to reach £451,094.

The top 20 best places to live 2026 | England and Wales

The North-South divide narrows

Greater Manchester performs strongly in our 2026 ranking, accounting for a quarter of the top 20 spots, including the table-topping Marple. This is despite the rapid rise in average prices in the region, which was strongest in fourth-placed Bramhall, where the value of a typical family home surged by 10.8% in just 12 months.

Just 20 minutes by train from the heart of Manchester, Bramhall is popular with professionals and has a vibrant high street, excellent schools, and a village atmosphere. The concentration of high-paying jobs and good transport links powered it to 21st place in the schools, jobs, and connectivity category of the ranking.

Just two places below Bramhall is another Greater Manchester hotspot, Bowdon. Coming sixth overall, this prestigious village also came 37th in the schools, jobs, and connectivity category of the ranking.

Home to Premier League footballers and celebrities, and located in the prime ‘Golden Triangle’ between Manchester and Liverpool, Bowdon bucked the regional trend to become a touch more affordable, with the price of a typical family home rising by a modest 1.3% to reach £639,321.

Three of the four English locations in the top 20 that saw the price of a family home fall over the year are in the south. Prices fell furthest in Long Ashton, an attractive Somerset village just four miles from the centre of Bristol that finished one place above Bowdon in fifth overall.

With a pub that dates back more than five centuries, an 18-hole golf course, and a popular cricket club, Long Ashton also claimed 40th place in the heritage and culture category of our ranking.

The price of a typical family home in Long Ashton fell by 3% to reach £641,250, putting it almost exactly on par with Bowdon.

Use Garrington’s analysis tool to compare the best places to live

Prime pedigree

The highest ranked place in southern England is St Albans in Hertfordshire, a city founded in Roman times and with a winning streak in our annual ranking that stretches back almost as far. It came fifth in the 2025 league table and climbed to third in the 2026 ranking.

Barely 20 minutes by train from central London, St Albans is popular with wealthy commuters and has schools and property prices to match. At £895,411, the price of a typical family home in the city is the highest in our top 20 for 2026.

Welsh winner

The highest ranked place in Wales is Penarth, an elegant seaside town in the Vale of Glamorgan, just three miles from the centre of Cardiff. Famed for its Art Deco pavilion and pebble beach, the town looks out across the waters of the Severn Estuary and clinched 34th place in the heritage and culture category of the ranking.

With a typical family home in the town costing £436,219 after average prices softened by 4.4% over the past year, Penarth has become significantly better value and ranks 113th overall for 2026.

Best places to live for natural beauty

For all but the most committed city-dwellers, beautiful landscapes and opportunities to enjoy the outdoors are big draws. And while every region has its beauty spots, this year South East England has outperformed by clinching three of the top five spots in the natural environment category.

Royal Tunbridge Wells, a spa town in Kent that’s renowned for its period architecture, good schools, and easy commute into central London, is surrounded by some of the Garden of England’s most beautiful countryside.

A serial high-achiever in our Best Places to Live report, in 2025 Royal Tunbridge Wells came third in the natural environment category. For 2026, it has slipped just two places to fifth.

Well out West

When it comes to the wellbeing category of our ranking, the West Country reigns supreme. Four out of the top five locations in this category are in Devon, including fifth-ranked Budleigh Salterton.

Known as Budleigh by locals, this seaside hotspot came 162nd overall in our 2026 league table. The town is blessed with two and a half miles of beach, which are lapped by clean waters popular with swimmers, and overlooked by red sandstone cliffs. Budleigh also hosts high-profile literary and music festivals each year, and a typical family home costs £542,257.

Find your perfect place to live

You can use the tool below to compare nearly 1450 cities, towns, and villages across England and Wales.

Simply type the first three letters of the place you’re looking for into the interactive box. Alternatively, you can view all the locations in a region by selecting ‘browse by region’. And if you want to see how two places compare to each other, click the ‘Pin me’ button to view their scores side by side.

Getting expert help

If you feel you’d benefit from the guidance and expertise of a professional property buying agent, please get in touch for a no-obligation discussion about your plans to move and the services we offer.

Need help finding your perfect home? Click here to talk to us.

From chic city streets to idyllic country lanes

In addition to our national research, Garrington’s team of regional experts has unrivalled on-the-ground knowledge, with decades of experience sourcing and securing ideal homes for clients across the UK.

Our reach extends well beyond the headline locations featured above, with local insight that often uncovers places that don’t yet feature on mainstream lists but are very much on the rise.

Drawing on their deep local expertise, our advisors have identified a selection of hidden gems and emerging hotspots – places that may not rank at the top in every data category, but which are nonetheless full of charm, potential, and lifestyle appeal.

To explore these hand-picked recommendations, visit our dedicated page, where you’ll find links to a series of regional articles.

From vibrant city quarters to tranquil rural retreats, we’ve run the rule over a wide range of areas to suit every taste.

Behind the Best Places to Live research

Each year, our team of property experts collaborates closely with our research analysts to shape the methodology behind this, and our separate Best Places to Live report for Scotland.

By drawing on a consistent set of trusted data sources, we ensure year-on-year comparability, thus allowing meaningful insights to emerge and genuine trends to be identified.

You’ll find full details of our research methodology and the data sources we rely on in the sections below:

Our Best Places to Live research methodology

Garrington’s Best Places to Live in England and Wales report 2026 is an impartial, objective ranking based on publicly available data. The ranking is not based on subjective or personal opinions.

Our data team compiled data in a total of 18 categories, including proximity to open space, National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, numbers of listed and period homes, air quality, crime figures, and the percentage of homes with their closest primary school ranked Outstanding by Ofsted.

The analysis included a total of 1447 locations with a population of 5000 or more. Our report is NOT a league table of the ‘best and worst places to live’. On the contrary, the research only ranks the best places to live, so being included – whether at number 1 or at number 1447 – is to be applauded.

Data sources for our Best Places to Live research

A wide range of data sources have been used to create the report’s proprietary research methodology. These include:

The Office for National Statistics, Welsh Government, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Land Registry, Royal Mail, Ordnance Survey, Natural England, Natural Resources Wales, DEFRA, BEIS, NapTAN (Ministry for Transport), PCT, and Historic England.

Media enquiries and intellectual property

We welcome enquiries from journalists and recognised media outlets regarding our Best Places to Live Research 2026. Our team is pleased to assist with requests for further information, and members of our senior management team are available for press interviews, subject to availability. Please contact us here with such requests. We are happy to support accredited members of the press, including those from recognised publications and the Press Association.

All research findings remain the intellectual property of Garrington Property Finders Ltd. While we are pleased to share publicly available insights, we regret that our proprietary datasets are not available to third parties. The use of this content without appropriate credit or acknowledgement of Garrington’s rights is strictly prohibited. When referencing our research, please ensure it is clearly attributed to Garrington Property Finders.