Safer than it sounds, less safe than its own borough. Crime runs about a fifth above the Wokingham average. Shoplifting takes an oversized slice. Violence sits in line with the rest of the country. Unemployment barely registers. The numbers are high for Wokingham, which is a different thing from high.
Thames Valley Police recorded 512 crimes in the Sindlesham area in the year from June 2025 to May 2026, and the published rate comes out at about 57 crimes per 1,000 residents. That puts the area roughly 19% above the Wokingham borough average. Nobody wants to be above average on this measure, but the average in question belongs to one of the calmer boroughs in the south of England.
For the direct comparison, the Wokingham borough rate over the same period is about 48 crimes per 1,000 residents, against Sindlesham's 57. Nine extra crimes per thousand is the gap between the village and its borough, and that gap is what the "above average" label is carrying.
The area around it is not what most people picture when they hear "above average crime". Population density averages about 1,250 people per square kilometre, unemployment sits at about 2% and overcrowding at about 2%. This is a settled, low-unemployment place with room to breathe. Those figures describe the neighbourhood; they do not explain the crime rate, and nothing here should be read as saying they do.
The mix is where the story sits. Violence and sexual offences make up about 33% of recorded crime, against 35% nationally, so the category that sounds alarming is running slightly below the national share. That grouping is broad in law and includes common assault without injury, which is why it tops the list almost everywhere. Shoplifting accounts for about 21% of recorded crime here, against 8% nationally, and that is the outlier. Anti-social behaviour is about 9% against 16% nationally, other theft 8% against 7%, criminal damage and arson 6% against 7%, and public order offences 6% against 7%. Strip out the shoplifting and the mix looks like almost anywhere else in England. Leave it in and Sindlesham looks like a place with a shop problem rather than a street problem.
Reporting a crime and seeing someone charged are different outcomes. Thames Valley Police charges a suspect in about 9% of cases, against about 12% nationally, over the year from June 2025 to May 2026. That is a force-wide figure covering a large area, not Sindlesham's own. The same force closes about 37% of cases with no suspect identified, which is the honest answer to "will they catch them". None of this measures how safe the area is. It measures what happens afterwards.
Sindlesham's safety record is below average for its borough rather than bad in any absolute sense. The residential picture is calm; the headline number is inflated by what happens at the tills.