Yes, Hindhead is safe, and quieter than the rest of its borough. Crime runs about a seventh below the Waverley average. Almost nobody here is out of work. Burglary is the one figure that stands out. The quiet is real, and the thing worth watching is the house while you're out.
Hindhead's published crime rate for the twelve months from June 2025 to May 2026 was about 39 crimes per 1,000 residents, around 14% below the Waverley average. That's 342 recorded crimes over the year, covering everything from a broken fence to a stolen car. For a ridge-top village next to a national beauty spot, that's a small number, and most months pass without anything worth reporting.
For comparison, the Waverley rate over the same period was about 46 per 1,000. Waverley isn't a rough borough to begin with, so beating its average by a seventh counts for something. Hindhead is a quiet place inside a quiet district, and it gets through most weeks with nothing more dramatic than a parking dispute outside the shops.
Hindhead has about 1,680 people per square kilometre on average. Unemployment is about 2%, and overcrowded homes are also about 2%. It's a place of detached houses, gardens and people with somewhere to be in the morning. None of that makes anyone safe on its own account, but it's the backdrop the crime figures sit against.
The mix of recorded crime comes with a warning. The totals here are small enough that a handful of incidents moves any category by several points, so none of what follows is a fixed feature of the place. Violence and sexual offences make up about 41% of recorded crime, against about 35% across England and Wales. That broad statutory category is the largest almost everywhere, and it includes common assault without injury. Anti-social behaviour, at about 15% against 16% nationally, is close to the national share, and so is public order, at about 6% against 7%. Other theft sits at about 8% against 7%. Shoplifting is below the national share, at about 6% against 8%. The one category that stands clear is burglary, at about 9% of recorded crime against about 4% nationally. On totals this small, that's a reason to ask about alarms and locks at the viewing, not proof the village has a problem.
Hindhead's crime has an older history. In the 18th century this road was notorious for highwaymen, and a robber convicted at the Old Bailey admitted to stealing gold on the road towards London. What cut those robberies was more traffic and the opening of the London to Portsmouth railway, which took most of the freight off the road. No policing strategy had much to do with it.
What happens after a report is a separate question from how much crime there is. Surrey Police charges a suspect in about 11% of cases, against about 12% nationally, which puts it 30th of 42 forces. About 36% of cases are closed with no suspect identified. Those are force-wide figures for all of Surrey, not Hindhead's own, and they say nothing about how likely you are to be a victim. They tell you how likely the police are to catch someone once it has happened. The honest answer is sometimes.
Safety is one of Hindhead's real strengths. The village is quieter than a borough that's already quiet, and the only thing to keep an eye on is the house while you're away.