This comes down to personal preference, but initially you have to decide between a hybrid chicken or a pure breed chicken.
A hybrid is a bird developed by professional hatcheries over many years from crossing two specific breeds. This is done to obtain the characteristics required such as good egg layers, docility etc. There are about 10 established varieties of hybrid and different companies use different trade names which can cause some confusion. e.g. Amber Star, Amber Link and Ambers are all the same breed.
A pure breed is a ‘pedigree’ chicken that will breed true. They come in a huge variety of sizes and colours, some are used for showing and exhibiting , The types we keep are mostly dual purpose both meat and eggs but they still look great.
Generally hybrids will lay very well for 2 or 3 years before production slows or stops whilst pure breeds will lay fewer eggs (usually stopping totally during the winter) but there is a huge variety of sizes and colours to choose from.
Hybrids are often the best choice for new chicken keepers as they are vaccinated , guaranteed female , generally sold at Point of Lay , look lovely , lay lots of eggs and have no other issues that some pure breeds can suffer from .