The right parts of Worcestershire is a good call. Keep to the western half of the county to avoid the Chipping Norton contamination pouring off the Cotswold escarpment 😉 And dont stray too close to the Hereford border without regular tetanus shots and armed guard to keep the orcs at bay.
M5 runs N/S through the middle of the county bringing Birmingham and Bristol within 1hr and A419 linking you to M4 for London within 2hrs.
Direct train service to paddington I use from pershore in 2hrs05mins.
Broadband in the villages is a sticking point. I work from home most of the time and have to deal with 2Mb for simultaneous document work & video calls. It can get a little flaky but it works surprisingly well. However, Malvern and most other medium sized towns and larger are now on superfast Fibre – Qinetic in Malvern and surrounding high tech employers rely on the backbone. One day we might get 50Mb out to the green box in the village and then 20Mb onto us – they’re promising something by 2017, but we’ll probably have some kind of wireless system at higher speeds by then.
I was brought up in the county, but moved back here after 7 years in London nearly 10 years ago. I missed it too much. It’s a wonderful place that few people know exists. It’s very well connected too – Wales thattaway < (Coed Y brenin < 2.5hrs), London thattaway >, Even Gretna Green ^ in < 4.5hrs and Portsmouth <3hrs. But we dont have many sushi restaurants 🙁