Upper Holloway
Neighbourhood · 16,898 residents
45Fair
Fair · among the lowest-scoring suburbs
Check Local Score out of 100 · 60 is typical for the country
Each arc is a topic, coloured by its score
What’s good
- 100% of schools are rated Good or better by Ofsted
Check before you view
- Prices are high for local incomes: affordability scores 18, where 60 is typical
- Safety scores 29, below the typical 60
The essentials
Everyday life
The area
Around Upper Holloway
Map outline: Approximate — no official boundary exists for this neighbourhood
Is Upper Holloway a good place to live?
Upper Holloway scores 45/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as fair — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for schools (78).
It scores lowest on affordability (18) and safety (29).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Upper Holloway in London, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Upper Holloway
Terraced houses going for the best part of £900,000 sit a few streets from blocks of ex-council flats, and that contrast is the first thing you notice walking Upper Holloway's back roads — dense, mixed, unmistakably inner-London rather than suburban despite the name. The population density here runs several times the national average, and it shows in the packed pavements, the corner shops doing steady trade, and a demographic skewed younger than the country as a whole. This isn't a place that performs gentility for visitors; it just gets on with being lived in.
The schools are the quiet strength of the area. Yerbury Primary School holds an Outstanding rating, St Joseph's Catholic Primary does too, and the average Ofsted score across the seven sampled schools comfortably beats both the London region and the national picture — a genuine reason families stay put even when the numbers elsewhere give them pause. Transport backs this up: Archway Underground Station and Upper Holloway's own rail stop mean a commute into central London that barely needs planning. Housing tells a blunter story. Flats dominate the market, leasehold far outweighs freehold, and with a median sale price around £590,500 — essentially in line with Islington's borough-wide figure — you're paying inner-London rates for what, this far into the mid-30s in age profile, is mostly a flat-share or first-buyer market rather than family houses with gardens.