Essex in six numbers: crime, prices, broadband and air, council by council (2026)

Essex runs from the edge of London to the Suffolk border and the Tendring coast, and the county's 12 district council areas look very different on paper. This post sets the same six official measures side by side for each of them. Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock are separate unitary authorities and are not in these tables.

Every figure comes from Jackson's league tables, which are built from official open data. Each one describes a whole council area, not a street.

Recorded crime

Offences per 1,000 residents a year (ONS / Home Office police recorded crime, year ending March 2026). All 12 Essex areas are ranked.

Five Essex areas sit in the lowest-crime 60 of England and Wales. Rates are per resident, so town centres with lots of visitors and workers read higher than the risk to someone living there. Our guide on checking crime rates explains how to read the numbers for a single street.

Average house price

HM Land Registry UK House Price Index, July 2026. Cheapest to dearest:

• Tendring £259,568 · Colchester £297,824 · Harlow £319,860 · Braintree £328,477
• Castle Point £356,579 · Basildon £367,233 · Chelmsford £378,080 · Maldon £389,529
• Rochford £412,543 · Uttlesford £476,329 · Brentwood £514,480 · Epping Forest £525,719

The gap between the cheapest and dearest area is about £266,000: an average Epping Forest home costs roughly twice an average Tendring one. A low average can reflect the mix of homes and demand, so it is a starting point for a search, not a verdict on a place.

Price change over 12 months

Same source, July 2026. Essex split almost down the middle: six areas rose and six fell.

• Rising: Harlow +4.4%, Rochford +2.9%, Uttlesford +1.7%, Braintree +1.6%, Basildon +0.6%, Maldon +0.3%
• Falling: Colchester -0.5%, Tendring -1.4%, Epping Forest -1.6%, Chelmsford -2.3%, Brentwood -2.4%, Castle Point -4.3%

Castle Point's fall is one of the largest in England and Wales, ranked 301st for price change.

Gigabit broadband

Share of premises that can get a gigabit-capable connection (Ofcom Connected Nations, January 2026). Essex does well here: Basildon leads at 91.3%, with Harlow (90.9%) and Braintree (90.3%) close behind, and every area is above 79%. Tendring is lowest at 79.4%, just behind Colchester and Maldon (both 82.2%). Coverage can differ street by street, so check the postcode itself.

Air quality (fine particles, PM2.5)

Population-weighted background PM2.5 in µg/m³ (Defra modelled data, 2024). Lower is cleaner. The north and east of the county come out cleanest: Tendring 6.8, then Maldon and Uttlesford at 6.9. The areas nearest London read highest: Basildon 7.6 and Epping Forest 7.8. Every Essex area is above the World Health Organization's guideline of 5 µg/m³, as most of England is.

Deprivation

English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (MHCLG), ranked out of 296 English council areas, where 1 is the most deprived. Uttlesford (274), Brentwood (264) and Rochford (258) are among the least deprived areas in England. Tendring, at 25, is among the most deprived, followed in Essex by Basildon (106) and Harlow (116).

What the six numbers say together

Tendring has Essex's lowest prices and cleanest air, alongside the county's highest deprivation and lowest gigabit coverage. Epping Forest and Brentwood, closest to London, have the highest prices and low deprivation, but among the most fine particles in the air and prices that fell over the year. Rochford stands out for the county's lowest recorded crime and prices still rising, while Harlow has Essex's highest recorded crime rate alongside its fastest-rising prices and some of its best broadband. No single measure makes a place right or wrong for you; they tell you what to look at next.

Check a street, not just a district

District figures hide a lot of variation. The free Jackson check reads one postcode for flood risk, recorded crime, noise and the nearest station, and the full league tables for crime, prices, price change, broadband, air and deprivation show where each Essex area sits across England and Wales. Across the Thames, see Kent in six numbers. How Jackson scores an area explains the sources.

Data, not advice. Figures are official open data under the Open Government Licence (Ofcom data under Ofcom terms), for England & Wales, with the period shown for each.

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