Paddington is safer than its central London address suggests. Its crime rate is well under the Westminster average. Most of what gets reported is theft and nuisance, and violence and sexual offences make up a smaller share than they do nationally. The risk comes mainly from the crowds passing through the station, much less from the streets people live on.
The Metropolitan Police recorded 17,089 crimes across the area in the year to May 2026, for a published rate of about 262 per 1,000 people. That is roughly 40% below the Westminster average for the same twelve months. A main-line terminus and St Mary's Hospital bring in a large daily crowd who are robbed and recorded here but never appear among the residents the rate is measured against.
For comparison, the Westminster rate is about 440 crimes per 1,000 people, against Paddington's 262. The borough includes the West End, and Paddington is the calmer end of it.
It is a crowded place. The Office for National Statistics puts the average density at about 23,100 people per square kilometre. About 4% of residents were unemployed at the 2021 Census, and about 11% of households were overcrowded. That is a lot of people in tall buildings, and how a street feels depends as much on its footfall as on its residents.
The crime mix explains most of the rest. Anti-social behaviour makes up about 20% of recorded crime here, against 16% across England and Wales. Violence and sexual offences, a broad legal category that includes assaults with no injury, make up about 18% here against a national 35%. Other theft takes about 13% against 7%, and theft from the person about 11% against 2%. Shoplifting, at about 7% against 8%, is close to the national share, while drugs offences run at about 6% against 4%. Taken together, it is the mix of a place where people lose phones and bags, and assaults are comparatively rare. Look at the street-level crime map for any road you are considering, especially those near the station entrances, since the theft counts gather wherever the crowds do.
What happens after a report is a separate question, and the answer is less comforting. 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, and about 53% of its cases close with no suspect identified. Those are figures for the whole of London's force, and they have no bearing on how safe Paddington is. They do mean that a stolen phone will most likely stay stolen. Paddington Green Police Station, once the best-known police station in the district, now appears in the area's history only as "former".
Paddington is one of the safer places to live in central London, and the risk that is left mostly concerns your belongings.