Where our data comes from
Every figure in a Postcodewise report comes from a named public dataset. Here are all 34 of them: who publishes each one, what we use it for and how often it changes.
Postcodes and places
- ONS Postcode Directory (opens in a new tab)
Office for National Statistics
Every UK postcode, live and terminated, with its coordinates and the ward, district and region it sits in. Everything else hangs off this.
Updated: Quarterly
- OS Open UPRN (opens in a new tab)
Ordnance Survey
A reference point for each addressable property, used to link property-level records.
People and deprivation
- Census 2021 (opens in a new tab)
Office for National Statistics
Population, density, age profile, ethnicity and household make-up.
Updated: Fixed release
- English Indices of Deprivation (opens in a new tab)
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
Deprivation rank and decile for each neighbourhood, overall and by domain such as income, employment and health.
Crime and hazards
How we calculate itRecorded crime by category and month, counted for each neighbourhood.
Updated: Monthly
- Risk of Flooding from Rivers and Sea (opens in a new tab)
Environment Agency
The long-term flood risk band for each postcode, from very low to high.
Updated: Quarterly
- Flood warnings (opens in a new tab)
Environment Agency
Flood alerts and warnings in force near the postcode right now.
- Ground stability, mining and radon (opens in a new tab)
British Geological Survey, the Coal Authority and UKHSA
Subsidence hazard, past coal mining and radon potential.
Housing
How we calculate it- Price Paid Data (opens in a new tab)
HM Land Registry
Every residential sale in England and Wales: price, date and property type.
Updated: Monthly
- UK House Price Index (opens in a new tab)
HM Land Registry and ONS
Average prices and price change by local authority, across the whole UK.
Updated: Monthly
- Price Index of Private Rents (opens in a new tab)
Office for National Statistics
Average private rents by local authority.
Updated: Monthly
- Energy Performance Certificates (opens in a new tab)
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
Energy ratings for homes, summarised for each postcode.
Updated: Monthly
- Council tax bands (opens in a new tab)
Valuation Office Agency
The spread of council tax bands across homes in the postcode.
Schools
How we calculate it- Get Information About Schools (opens in a new tab)
Department for Education
Every school in England: type, age range, capacity and pupil numbers.
Updated: Monthly
The latest inspection judgement for each school.
Updated: Monthly
Environment
How we calculate it- Background air pollution maps (opens in a new tab)
Defra (UK-AIR)
Modelled annual NO₂, PM2.5, PM10 and SO₂ on a 1 km grid, turned into an air quality index.
- OS Open Greenspace (opens in a new tab)
Ordnance Survey
Parks, playing fields, allotments and other public green space.
- National Forest Inventory (opens in a new tab)
Forestry Commission
Woodland and tree cover, which Ordnance Survey’s green space data leaves out.
- Access to gardens and green space (opens in a new tab)
Office for National Statistics
How many homes have a garden and how far people live from a public park.
- Strategic noise maps and flight paths (opens in a new tab)
Defra and the Civil Aviation Authority
Road, rail and aircraft noise around the postcode.
- Bathing water quality (opens in a new tab)
Environment Agency
Water quality classifications for nearby beaches and bathing spots.
- Storm overflow returns (opens in a new tab)
Environment Agency
How often nearby sewer overflows spilled in the last reported year.
- Historic landfill sites (opens in a new tab)
Environment Agency
Closed landfill sites near the postcode.
- Sites of Special Scientific Interest (opens in a new tab)
Natural England
Protected wildlife and geology sites nearby.
Broadband and transport
How we calculate itBroadband speeds available at each postcode, and 4G and 5G signal by mobile network.
- NaPTAN (opens in a new tab)
Department for Transport
Bus stops, railway stations and other public transport stops.
- OpenStreetMap (opens in a new tab)
OpenStreetMap contributors
Shops, services, EV chargers and other everyday amenities.
Planning
- Planning Data Platform (opens in a new tab)
Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government
Planning applications and decisions, plus conservation areas, Article 4 directions and listed buildings.
Updated: Daily
- Planning London Datahub (opens in a new tab)
Greater London Authority
Planning applications and development records across the London boroughs.
- London Statutory Planning Data Map (GLA GIS) (opens in a new tab)
Greater London Authority
30+ statutory planning designations, Article 4 directions, Opportunity Areas, and borough development plan policies.
- National Heritage List for England (NHLE) (opens in a new tab)
Historic England
Statutory listed buildings (Grade I, II*, II), registered parks and gardens, and scheduled monuments.
Local life
- Food hygiene ratings (opens in a new tab)
Food Standards Agency
Inspection ratings for restaurants, cafés, takeaways and food shops nearby.
Updated: Weekly
- Basic company data (opens in a new tab)
Companies House
Companies registered in the area.
- Elected representatives (opens in a new tab)
Democracy Club
Your MP and local councillors, plus links to bin collection information.
How we handle it
Downloaded, not scraped
We download datasets from their publishers in bulk and load them into our own database. A few things are looked up live: flood warnings, because they change by the hour, and crime or broadband figures for a postcode our copy doesn’t cover yet, which come straight from Police.uk or Ofcom. We don’t scrape property portals or use commercial data resellers.
Some figures lag behind
We can only be as current as the publisher. Police.uk crime usually runs about two months behind, and house sales take a few weeks to reach the Land Registry. For big decisions, check the latest figures with the publisher linked above.
Where coverage stops
- Deprivation, school inspections and council tax bands cover England only, or England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland publish their own versions, which we don’t use yet.
- Individual sold prices come from HM Land Registry, which covers England and Wales. Elsewhere we use local-authority averages from the UK House Price Index.
- Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime to Police.uk, so crime figures aren’t available for Scottish postcodes.
- Green space and woodland data covers Great Britain only, so Northern Ireland postcodes show none.
Licences and copyright
Postcodewise incorporates geospatial and statistical datasets published by UK government departments, Crown agencies, and official bodies. All data is processed and presented in accordance with mandatory open data licensing requirements:
Office for National Statistics (ONS): Postcode data and census statistics are sourced from the ONS and used under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (OGL). More details on ONS geography licensing can be found on the ONS Open Geography Portal.
Ordnance Survey (OS): Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.
Royal Mail: Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026.
National Statistics: Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.
OpenStreetMap: Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence (ODbL).
Notice: Geographic coordinates, outcode/district centroids, and boundary representations are approximate calculations intended for spatial analytics, statistical comparisons, and demographic insight, and must not be used for precision navigation or property boundary delimitation.