Burglary in Staffordshire & the West Midlands: the 2026 picture.

Burglary is more common in the urban West Midlands than in more rural Staffordshire, and both are falling. Police-recorded data summarised by Plumplot shows around 24,100 burglaries across the West Midlands in the twelve months to April 2026, down about 6.3% on the year before. Staffordshire recorded around 3,600 over the same period, a rate of roughly 3.4 per 1,000 people, down about 5.4%. The gap matches what I see on the ground: the denser the housing, the more opportunist burglary there tends to be. You can check the picture for your own street on the police.uk crime map by entering your postcode.

Through a door, far more often than through a window. The Office for National Statistics reports that in domestic burglaries the offender gained entry through a door around 70% of the time and through a window around 30% of the time. Most domestic burglary is opportunist rather than a sophisticated break-in, which is why your doors and their locks are the single most important thing to get right. On the uPVC and composite doors common across the West Midlands and Staffordshire, the usual attack is snapping a basic euro cylinder, which a TS007 3-star anti-snap cylinder is specifically designed to defeat. The anti-snap locks guide explains how.

Most domestic burglary is opportunist, so the goal is simply to be a harder target than the next house. The basics, backed by Secured by Design (the official police security initiative) and Neighbourhood Watch: lock every door and window every time you go out, even just into the garden; on a uPVC door, lift the handle AND turn the key to deadlock it, do not just pull it shut; fit anti-snap TS007 3-star cylinders or BS3621 mortice locks to your final-exit doors; use motion-sensor lighting outside and lamps or a radio on timers when you are out; keep keys, valuables and your car keys out of sight and away from the letterbox; secure side gates, sheds and any ladders or tools that could be used to get in; and keep front boundaries low so a burglar cannot work unseen. The full checklist is in the "how to protect your home" section above.

For a uPVC or composite door, the best defence against the most common attack (cylinder snapping) is an anti-snap euro cylinder to TS007 3-star, or a Sold Secure SS312 Diamond cylinder. For a timber door, a five-lever mortice deadlock to BS3621 is the insurer-recognised standard. Beyond the lock itself, the door has to be sound and properly adjusted, hinge bolts help on outward-opening doors, and a door chain or viewer adds protection against doorstep callers. I fit and upgrade all of these, and the honest truth is that on most homes a single anti-snap cylinder upgrade buys the biggest jump in security for the least money. The types of door locks guide covers every option and what each is worth.

Down, and over the long term, sharply so. The Office for National Statistics reported around 327,000 domestic burglary incidents in England and Wales in the year ending December 2025, a 22% fall on the previous year, continuing a downward trend that has run for three decades. Police-recorded burglary fell 12% to 224,518 offences over a comparable period. Regionally, both the West Midlands (down about 6.3%) and Staffordshire (down about 5.4%) followed the national direction. Better door and lock security is a big part of the long-term fall, which is the encouraging flip side of the statistics: target-hardening genuinely works.

First, do not touch anything more than you have to, and ring the police on 101 (or 999 if the burglar may still be nearby) to get a crime reference number, which your insurer will need. Then make the property secure again: if a lock, cylinder or door has been forced, it needs replacing before nightfall, and your insurer will usually want the new lock fitted to a recognised standard (TS007 for uPVC, BS3621 for timber) with that standard itemised on the receipt. I attend post-burglary jobs across Wolverhampton, Stafford and Cannock and provide exactly that paperwork, including the crime reference on the invoice, so the claim is straightforward. The lock change after a burglary guide walks through the whole process, including what your insurer actually needs from the locksmith.

Burglary is heavily opportunist, so it tracks darkness and absence more than any particular hour: the darker evenings of autumn and winter, and any time a house looks empty, are when the risk is highest. A home that looks occupied (lights on a timer, a car on the drive, no post building up) is a far less attractive target than one that obviously is not, which is why the simple "make it look lived-in" measures work so well. In my experience across the patch, the jobs I attend cluster around the longer winter evenings and around holiday periods when houses are left empty. None of that requires sophistication to defend against: lock up, light it up, and make the place look occupied.