UK independent schools, on the numbers
Four transparent views built on the 329 schools in the open Houseroom Index: what your fees actually buy, where the strongest schools cluster, how each school balances academic stretch against pastoral care, and what an Oxbridge offer count does and does not tell you. No paid placement.
What your fees actually buy
Every school with a published day fee, plotted by its overall Houseroom Index score against that fee. The dashed lines mark the medians, splitting the field into four. A high fee does not guarantee a high score.
- Strong index, lower fee
- Strong index, higher fee
- Lower index, lower fee
- Lower index, higher fee
How the field splits
- Strong index, lower fee44
- Strong index, higher fee61
- Lower index, lower fee61
- Lower index, higher fee44
Strongest index for the fee
- Guildford High School93 · £27k
- City of London School90 · £30k
- South Hampstead High School90 · £30k
- King Edward VI High School for Girls89 · £23k
- Magdalen College School89 · £30k
- Alleyn's School88 · £27k
- Royal Grammar School Guildford87 · £28k
- The Perse School86 · £28k
Houseroom Index is an open, nine-pillar score (no paid placement); day fee is the published maximum annual day rate. Quadrants are set at the medians of the 210 schools with a fee on file. Schools without a published fee are excluded, not penalised.
Where the strong schools cluster
Average Houseroom Index by borough or town, shaded from low to high. Only areas with at least three ranked schools are shown, so a single strong school cannot colour a whole area.
Strongest areas
- Oxford80.7· 3 schools
- Wandsworth76.1· 21 schools
- Harrow75.2· 6 schools
- Merton74.8· 9 schools
- Hammersmith and Fulham74.7· 13 schools
- Brent74.4· 6 schools
- Richmond upon Thames74.3· 17 schools
- Redbridge74.2· 5 schools
34 areas shown; 45 dropped for having fewer than 3 ranked schools. Bands are quantiles of the area averages, so colour is relative within this set, not an absolute grade.
The balance map
Every ranked school plotted by its academic index against its whole-child (pastoral and wellbeing) index. The top-right corner is strong on both; the question for most families is which lean suits their child, not which axis is higher.
- All-round
- Academic-leaning
- Pastoral-leaning
- Developing
How the field splits
- All-round (strong on both)124
- Academic-leaning41
- Pastoral-leaning79
- Developing on both85
Academic and whole-child indices are two of the nine open Houseroom Index pillars. A school in the bottom-left of this map is not a weak school in absolute terms; it sits below the median of an already-selective field on both measures.
More offers, or a better chance?
Oxbridge offers are published as a headline count. Count and share of the cohort do rise together across the field — but not in lockstep. Among the 20 schools publishing the most offers, ranking by share instead moves the typical school 6 places, and the largest shift is 24.
- Fewer offers, higher rate
- More offers, higher rate
- More offers, lower rate
- Fewer offers, lower rate
How the field splits
- Fewer offers, higher rate5
- More offers, higher rate49
- More offers, lower rate4
- Fewer offers, lower rate46
Highest share of the cohort
- Guildford High School44.4% · 40 offers
- St Paul's Girls' School42.9% · 48 offers
- Westminster School36.7% · 72 offers
- Felsted School35.2% · 43 offers
- North London Collegiate School30.0% · 24 offers
- Canford School29.8% · 39 offers
104 of 111 schools with both figures are plotted. The two are strongly related across this field (Pearson r = 0.86), so a school high on one is usually high on the other; the chart is here for where that breaks down, not to suggest it never holds. A rate is only meaningful against the cohort it came from, so schools whose figures imply a sixth-form year group below 40 are excluded — five offers from a cohort of fourteen is 36%, which would otherwise outrank every school here. Counts and rates are each as published by the school, for its most recent stated year, and those years are not always the same school to school. Read this as the shape of the field, not a ranking.
Take it further
These charts read the same open data behind every school profile. Filter to your shortlist, then compare on the dimensions that matter for your child.