Is Coventry safe? For most residents and visitors, yes: Coventry recorded 32,840 crimes in the 12 months to April 2026, a crime rate of 81.45 per 1,000 people: about 9 per cent below the West Midlands rate of 89.93 and lower than Birmingham and Wolverhampton, but about 20 per cent above the England rate of 67.79. The total fell 5.9 per cent on the previous year (34,899) and is 24 per cent below the 2023 peak of 43,117. Violence and sexual offences make up 43 per cent of it; weapons possession, bicycle theft, vehicle crime, robbery and burglary run above the national rate, while anti-social behaviour and pickpocketing are well below it. The figures describe recorded incidents, not the people who live in the city.
Data: police-recorded crime, 12 months to April 2026, counts and rates from CrimeRate’s analysis of data.police.uk (West Midlands Police, Coventry; updated 7 June 2026); neighbourhood counts from police.uk, 12 months to August 2026 (Binley, Willenhall, Cheylesmore and Earlsdon to July 2026); resident population from the ONS Census 2021 (345,300). Shares and ratios are our own arithmetic on those figures. Updated 31 October 2026: data.police.uk confirmed today that August 2026 is still the latest month and that West Midlands Police crime data is complete for the last 12 months; CrimeRate’s Coventry pages served an older version today, so the CrimeRate figures are as checked on 12 October 2026 from the same release (12 months to April 2026).
Is Coventry safe?
Broadly, yes, by the standards of a large English city. Coventry’s 81.45 crimes per 1,000 people is the lowest of the big West Midlands cities we cover: Wolverhampton is 7 per cent higher and Birmingham 29 per cent higher. It is about level with Newcastle and Sheffield, just above Cardiff, and well below Leicester, Bristol, Leeds and Nottingham. Recorded crime has fallen for three years in a row.
What is the crime rate in Coventry?
81.45 crimes per 1,000 people in the 12 months to April 2026, according to CrimeRate. That is 32,840 offences, not counting 2,069 anti-social behaviour reports (34,909 incidents with them). The rate is about 9 per cent below the West Midlands (89.93) and about 20 per cent above England (67.79). A year earlier Coventry recorded 34,899 offences at 87.13 per 1,000.
How does Coventry compare with other cities?
All rates below come from the same source and method, so they can be compared with each other. Coventry sits in the lower half of large UK cities.
| Place | Per 1,000, 12 months to April 2026 | Compared with Coventry |
|---|---|---|
| Westminster (London) | 125.00 | 53% higher |
| Nottingham | 107.74 | 32% higher |
| Leeds | 107.10 | 31% higher |
| Liverpool | 106.48 | 31% higher |
| Birmingham | 105.05 | 29% higher |
| Bristol | 104.64 | 28% higher |
| Leicester | 97.87 | 20% higher |
| Wolverhampton | 87.06 | 7% higher |
| Sheffield | 84.09 | 3% higher |
| Newcastle | 82.69 | 2% higher |
| Coventry | 81.45 | – |
| Cardiff | 79.55 | 2% lower |
| Luton | 74.46 | 9% lower |
| England | 67.79 | 17% lower |
For the detail on nearby cities, read is Birmingham safe?, is Wolverhampton safe? and is Nottingham safe?. For smaller towns with a similar profile, see Luton and High Wycombe.
What is the crime rate in Coventry per resident?
About 95 crimes per 1,000 residents. CrimeRate’s 81.45 uses its own population base, which counts more people than the 345,300 residents in the ONS Census 2021 because it includes people who come into the city to work and study. Against the Census figure, the same 32,840 offences work out at roughly 95 per 1,000; with the 2,069 anti-social behaviour reports, 34,909 incidents, about 101 per 1,000. Use the first rate to compare places; the second shows the load on the city itself.
What kind of crime is recorded in Coventry?
Violence and sexual offences are the largest category, with 14,184 offences, 43.2 per cent of the total. The 13 categories below add up to exactly 32,840; anti-social behaviour (2,069 reports) comes on top. The index is CrimeRate’s comparison with the national rate (1.00 = average).
| Category | Coventry, 12 months to April 2026 | Per 1,000 | Share of total | Index vs national |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violence and sexual offences | 14,184 | 35.15 | 43.2% | 1.16 |
| Shoplifting | 3,493 | 8.66 | 10.6% | 1.21 |
| Criminal damage and arson | 2,724 | 6.78 | 8.3% | 1.08 |
| Vehicle crime | 2,632 | 6.52 | 8.0% | 1.52 |
| Other theft | 2,247 | 5.56 | 6.8% | 0.98 |
| Public order | 1,926 | 4.78 | 5.9% | 0.82 |
| Burglary | 1,740 | 4.31 | 5.3% | 1.38 |
| Drugs | 1,018 | 2.55 | 3.1% | 0.83 |
| Robbery | 708 | 1.74 | 2.2% | 1.47 |
| Possession of weapons | 689 | 1.73 | 2.1% | 2.04 |
| Other crime | 664 | 1.64 | 2.0% | 0.89 |
| Bicycle theft | 498 | 1.24 | 1.5% | 1.70 |
| Theft from the person | 317 | 0.79 | 1.0% | 0.51 |
Four things stand out. First, possession of weapons is the highest index in Coventry at 2.04, about twice the national rate. Weapons offences are mostly found by police, through stop and search and targeted operations, so the figure reflects police activity as well as how often people carry knives. Second, the property crimes that affect households run above average: vehicle crime (1.52), robbery (1.47), burglary (1.38) and bicycle theft (1.70). Coventry has two universities and a large student population living in shared houses, which tends to push up burglary and bicycle theft. Third, violence is the biggest category but only modestly above the national rate (index 1.16); the category is broad and includes harassment, stalking, domestic incidents and assaults without injury, much of it between people who know each other. Fourth, some things are clearly low: anti-social behaviour is about a third of the national rate (5.13 per 1,000, index 0.36) and theft from the person is about half (index 0.51), so pickpocketing and snatch theft are not the everyday risk.
Is crime in Coventry going up or down?
Down, for the third year running. CrimeRate records 34,899 offences (87.13 per 1,000) in the 12 months to April 2025 and 32,840 (81.45) in the 12 months to April 2026: 2,059 fewer, a fall of 5.9 per cent. The series peaked at 43,117 offences (111.39 per 1,000) in 2023; the latest year is 24 per cent below that, and close to the 2021 level (32,230).
| Year (12 months to April) | Crimes | Per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 28,068 | 74.84 |
| 2020 | 27,284 | 72.53 |
| 2021 | 32,230 | 85.59 |
| 2022 | 40,437 | 106.54 |
| 2023 | 43,117 | 111.39 |
| 2024 | 38,157 | 96.75 |
| 2025 | 34,899 | 87.13 |
| 2026 | 32,840 | 81.45 |
Which parts of Coventry record the most crime?
West Midlands Police splits Coventry into seven neighbourhood teams, and police.uk publishes 12-month counts for each, including anti-social behaviour. St Michael’s, which covers the city centre and Hillfields, records by far the most, because the shops, the bus and rail stations, the university campuses and the evening economy are all inside it.
| Neighbourhood team (police.uk) | Incidents in 12 months | Latest month | Top categories in latest month |
|---|---|---|---|
| St Michael’s (city centre, Hillfields) | 9,136 | Aug 2026: 871 | Violence 334, shoplifting 137, public order 83, other theft 68 |
| Henley and Longford | 5,137 | Aug 2026: 522 | Violence 236, shoplifting 51, criminal damage 47, vehicle crime 41 |
| Stoke and Wyken | 4,917 | Aug 2026: 395 | Violence 143, shoplifting 44, vehicle crime 39, criminal damage 37 |
| Woodlands, Wainbody, Westwood and Whoberley | 4,426 | Aug 2026: 410 | Violence 177, criminal damage 41, vehicle crime 35, anti-social behaviour 25 |
| Binley, Willenhall, Cheylesmore and Earlsdon (to July 2026) | 4,359 | Jul 2026: 404 | Violence 156, vehicle crime 44, shoplifting 41, criminal damage 36 |
| Foleshill | 2,896 | Aug 2026: 272 | Violence 105, criminal damage 22, public order 22, anti-social behaviour 21 |
Source: police.uk neighbourhood pages, September 2025 to August 2026 (Binley, Willenhall, Cheylesmore and Earlsdon August 2025 to July 2026, the latest month its page shows). The seventh team, Holbrook, Radford, Sherbourne and Bablake, could not be read on the day of writing and is left out rather than estimated. These are counts for team areas of different sizes and populations, not rates, and the team boundaries are not the same as CrimeRate’s Coventry, so they should not be added up and compared with the city total. The published priorities are mostly ordinary ones: city centre anti-social behaviour, shop theft and violence against women and girls in St Michael’s; retail theft and off-road bikes in Henley and Longford and in Stoke and Wyken; vehicle crime in Cheylesmore; late-night groups outside 24-hour shops on Foleshill Road.
Is Coventry busier for crime in summer?
Yes, in the neighbourhood data. Across the five teams with figures to August 2026, recorded incidents fell to 1,875 in December 2025 and rose to 2,711 in July 2026, 45 per cent higher. The six months from March to August 2026 recorded 14,309 incidents, 17 per cent more than the 12,203 in the six months before. St Michael’s alone went from 660 in December to 931 in July. Longer evenings, events and more people out mean more recorded incidents, not necessarily a higher risk for any one person.
Is Coventry city centre safe at night?
For most people, yes: Coventry’s city-wide rate of 81.45 crimes per 1,000 (12 months to April 2026) is below the West Midlands’ 89.93, and theft from the person runs at about half the national rate, but recorded incidents are concentrated in St Michael’s, the team area that covers the centre and its evening economy, with 9,136 incidents in the 12 months to August 2026. Police street-level data carries no time of day, so it cannot say how much crime happens after dark. What it shows is that violence is the largest category in St Michael’s (334 of 871 incidents in August 2026), followed by shoplifting and public order, and that the local team is targeting public drinking, drug use, aggressive begging and dangerous e-bike riding in the centre. Theft from the person is rare across the city, 317 offences in a year. Keep to lit, busy routes between the precinct, Pool Meadow bus station and Coventry railway station, plan your way home before a night out, and use licensed taxis. Check the streets you will use in the postcode checker.
One gap matters around the station. British Transport Police, which polices the railways, provided no crime data to data.police.uk for any month from September 2025 to August 2026 (data.police.uk changelog, checked 31 October 2026), so offences it recorded at Coventry railway station are missing from the counts above and from the police crime map. West Midlands Police data for Coventry has no such gap.
Is Coventry a safe place to live?
For most residents, yes, with the usual caveats about averages. The risks to plan around are at home and on the driveway rather than on the street: burglary (1,740 offences, index 1.38), vehicle crime (2,632, index 1.52) and bicycle theft (498, index 1.70) all run above the national rate. Good locks, off-street parking where you can, and a bike kept indoors make a real difference. Students in shared houses should check window locks and contents insurance. The city-wide numbers also hide large differences between streets, so compare two postcodes before you choose, and read how to check crime in your area for the limits of any single number. This page describes what was recorded, not the people who live here.
How do I check a specific street or postcode in Coventry?
- Enter your postcode in the postcode checker to see 12 months of police-recorded crime and the trend by month.
- Add a second postcode, for example one in Earlsdon or Wyken, to compare two areas side by side.
- Zoom into the UK crime map to see what was recorded near a street.
These figures describe areas, not addresses. Police data covers reported crime only, and each crime is shown at a nearby anonymised point. Read where our crime data comes from for the limits. Rates from different websites use different population estimates and are not directly comparable, so the city rates on this page all come from one source.
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Coventry crime FAQ
What is the crime rate in Coventry?
Coventry recorded 81.45 crimes per 1,000 people in the 12 months to April 2026 (32,840 offences), against 89.93 for the West Midlands and 67.79 for England (CrimeRate). Anti-social behaviour is not included. Per resident, using the Census 2021 population of 345,300, it is about 95 per 1,000.
Is Coventry safe at night?
For most people, yes. Coventry recorded 81.45 crimes per 1,000 in the 12 months to April 2026, below the West Midlands’ 89.93, and theft from the person is about half the national rate. Night-time activity is concentrated in St Michael’s, the city-centre team area, which recorded 9,136 incidents in the 12 months to August 2026, so keep to lit, busy routes and plan your way home.
Is Coventry safer than Birmingham?
On the recorded figures, yes. Birmingham’s 105.05 per 1,000 is about 29 per cent higher than Coventry’s 81.45, and Wolverhampton’s 87.06 is about 7 per cent higher.
Is crime in Coventry going up?
No. Recorded crime fell from 34,899 to 32,840 offences between the 12 months to April 2025 and the 12 months to April 2026, a drop of 5.9 per cent, the third yearly fall since the 2023 peak of 43,117.
Which part of Coventry records the most crime?
St Michael’s, the neighbourhood team that covers the city centre and Hillfields, with 9,136 incidents in the 12 months to August 2026, mostly violence, shoplifting and public order. It contains the main shopping, transport and nightlife areas, so it draws far more people than live there.
Where does this data come from?
Police-recorded crime published on data.police.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0, analysed by CrimeRate for counts and rates, police.uk neighbourhood pages for local counts, and the ONS Census 2021 for residents. See where our crime data comes from.
Other cities and towns: Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Leeds, Luton, Sheffield, most dangerous areas in Birmingham and London. In an emergency call 999.