Scottish university cities dominate the safety rankings for Freshers season, with St Andrews, Dundee and Stirling occupying the top three positions in a new study examining recorded crime across UK student destinations during September and October 2025. London, Bradford and Leicester, meanwhile, sit at the foot of the table, recording some of the highest crime rates relative to student population.
The research, conducted by ID Card Centre, assessed recorded crime data from police forces across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland during the two-month window that covers the main Freshers and welcome period. Cities were scored on overall crime, violent crime and antisocial behaviour, each weighted and then adjusted against the number of students enrolled at the relevant university — giving a student-adjusted rate rather than simply a raw crime total.
Scotland leads the safety table
St Andrews achieved a safety score of 94 out of 100, recording just 120 crimes across the two months — equivalent to 103 per 10,000 students, the lowest adjusted rate in the entire ranking. The Fife city, home to the University of St Andrews, recorded only 18 violent offences and 11 antisocial behaviour incidents during the period.
Dundee followed in second place with a score of 92.1, recording 280 crimes — around 155 per 10,000 students — while Stirling completed an all-Scottish top three with a score of 89.1 and 309 crimes, equating to roughly 207 per 10,000 students.
Derry/Londonderry was the highest-ranking destination outside Scotland, finishing fourth with a score of 85.5. Edinburgh placed fifth, with a raw total of 1,670 crimes that, measured against more than 41,000 University of Edinburgh students, fell to approximately 405 per 10,000.
Among English cities, Oxford performed best, ranking sixth overall with a score of 82.7 and recording around 402 crimes per 10,000 students — notably fewer antisocial behaviour incidents than comparable cities. Durham followed in seventh, with Bangor leading the Welsh cities in eighth place. Aberdeen and Aberystwyth completed the top ten.
London, Bradford and Leicester rank among the least safe
At the opposite end of the table, London recorded the largest raw crime total by a considerable margin — 11,186 offences across September and October 2025. Measured against UCL’s enrolment figures, that translates to approximately 2,389 crimes per 10,000 students, nearly six times Oxford’s adjusted rate and more than 23 times that of St Andrews. London finished 45th overall with a safety score of 10.7, with 1,494 violent offences and 1,201 antisocial behaviour incidents recorded — the highest ASB figure in the entire study.
Bradford ranked 46th with a score of 9.4. Its 2,523 crimes equated to around 2,123 per 10,000 students, the second-highest student-adjusted rate in the ranking, and included 894 violent offences.
Leicester finished bottom of the table in 47th place with a score of 9.3, recording 3,114 crimes including 915 violent offences and 445 antisocial behaviour incidents. Although its adjusted rate of around 1,868 per 10,000 students was lower than both Bradford and London, the combination of all three crime measures resulted in the lowest overall score.
Brighton, Bristol, Wrexham, Belfast, Plymouth, Derby and Newcastle also featured in the bottom ten. Belfast’s 41st-place finish stands in stark contrast to Derry/Londonderry’s fourth-place ranking — the two Northern Irish cities recorded 2,877 and 700 crimes respectively across the same period.
Context and caveats
Ben O’Brien, Managing Director at ID Card Centre, said the findings illustrated how significantly the Freshers experience could vary by location. “The places at the top are mostly smaller student cities, while quite a few of the big nightlife destinations sit much further down. That probably isn’t a coincidence. Somewhere like St Andrews has a very different city centre to London, Bristol or Newcastle. There are fewer people passing through, less late-night footfall and generally less going on in a much smaller area.”
O’Brien also highlighted the importance of adjusting for student population. “Aberystwyth, for example, only recorded 326 crimes across the two months, but because its student population is much smaller it finishes tenth rather than right at the top. That’s why we wanted to look beyond simply saying which city had the most or least crime.”
He cautioned against reading too much into the results when choosing a university. “None of this means students should choose a university based on a crime table, and being lower down certainly doesn’t mean you’re going to have a bad or unsafe experience there. These are busy city-centre areas and the figures cover everyone using them, not just students.” He added that Freshers week was the moment when students were least familiar with their surroundings and urged new arrivals to keep hold of phones and cards, be cautious about granting access to accommodation and report lost ID cards promptly.
The methodology uses a fixed 1.5 km city-centre catchment for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, drawing on data from police.uk, with student numbers drawn from 2024/25 HESA enrolment figures. Scottish cities use Police Scotland Multi Member Ward data, which is not directly comparable with the fixed catchments used elsewhere, so cross-nation comparisons should be treated with caution. Manchester was excluded because Greater Manchester Police did not supply September–October 2025 street-level crime data through police.uk. The researchers also noted that recorded crime reflects reporting and policing patterns as well as local footfall, and the ranking should not be read as a definitive measure of safety.
