Oxford

Cyclists dominate the roads here in a way few English cities manage, weaving between college walls, red-brick terraces and the odd glass-fronted lab building — the streetscape reads as much university town as city, with young adults and academics outnumbering families on the pavements. The median age of 31.5, well below the national 40.4, tells you who's actually filling these streets: students, postdocs, and the young professionals who stay on after graduating.

Oxford Rail Station anchors the commuting picture, though it's the only station serving a city of over 160,000 people, and that scarcity shows up in the connectivity grade, which lags well behind everything else on the scorecard. Schooling fares better: The Cherwell School carries an Outstanding rating for secondary-age children, and the broader schools grade sits comfortably above the national average, even if the average Ofsted rating across the 71 schools counted is more middling. Housing here is expensive by any measure — a median of £450,000 against a national figure of £281,000 — but it's flat against the city's own recent trend and barely distinguishable from its wider district, so you're not paying a premium to live centrally versus the outskirts. Terraces and freeholds dominate the sales data, meaning a typical For Sale board here is advertising a Victorian terrace you'll own outright, not a leasehold flat share.

Green space is generous for an urban centre — 379 sites covering nearly 732 hectares — and University Parks or the Meadow (however you spend your weekend outdoors) sit alongside a restaurant scene that reflects the international, academic population as much as the tourist trade. The environment and nightlife grades both come out as well above average, which matches the lived experience of a city that empties into pubs and college bars once lectures finish. Health provision reads solidly too, though the crime picture is the one grade that jars against this otherwise comfortable pattern: violence and sexual offences make up over a third of all recorded crime, and the total volume is high for the population size, even as the safety grade itself holds at a respectable "B" and has stayed flat rather than worsening.