Hayes is less safe than the rest of its borough, with around 157 recorded crimes a year for every thousand residents. That is about a fifth higher than Hillingdon as a whole. Violence and sexual offences make up a smaller share of recorded crime than they do nationally. Nuisance, shoplifting and car crime make up a bigger one. The worries in Hayes are mostly the car on the street and the shop till, and much less the walk home.
The Metropolitan Police recorded 9,431 crimes in Hayes in the year to May 2026, a published rate of about 157 per 1,000 residents. That is roughly 21% above the average for the borough. It is the main reason Hayes comes out weaker on safety than on almost anything else it is judged on.
Across Hillingdon as a whole, the published rate over the same twelve months was about 131 crimes per 1,000 residents. Hayes's 157 is higher than that. Hillingdon is a borough of airport villages, outer suburbs and green belt, and Hayes is its busy, built-up middle.
That busy middle is the context for these figures. Hayes averages around 9,600 residents per square kilometre. About 5% of working-age residents were unemployed at the 2021 census, and about 20% of households were overcrowded. These figures describe a dense, crowded working town. They do not show why crime is higher, only what kind of place the higher rate comes from.
The crime mix is where Hayes differs most from the national picture. Violence and sexual offences make up about 25% of recorded crime here, against about 35% across England and Wales. That is the largest category almost everywhere, and in Hayes it is a smaller share than usual. Anti-social behaviour accounts for about 22% against 16% nationally, shoplifting about 11% against 8%, and vehicle crime about 10% against 5%. Other theft, at about 7%, is almost identical to the national share, and public order offences, at about 5% against 7%, run slightly below it. The most famous punches thrown in Hayes still belong to Chris Finnegan, who learned to box at the town's amateur club and won Olympic gold in 1968.
The Metropolitan Police charges a suspect in about 10% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 33rd of 42 forces in England and Wales. Those are force-wide figures for the whole of London, and they show what happens after a crime is reported. They say nothing about how often crime happens in Hayes. Over the year to May 2026, about 53% of the Met's cases were closed with no suspect identified. If your car is broken into, you are more likely to end up with a crime number for the insurer than a court date. For a particular house, look at the police's street-level crime map over several months. A single month can be skewed by one bad week on one parade of shops.
Safety is a real weakness in Hayes. Most of the crime is nuisance and theft, and violence makes up a smaller share than usual, but there is more of it here than in the rest of the borough.