Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
In Aberdeenshire, Scotland, this town has 2,792 residents.
Alford’s strongest subject is cost of living: homes sell for a median £198,800, about 3.8 times local household income. Health is another plus — life expectancy 85.1 for men, 88.2 for women. Walking, cycling and public transport carry 13% of commuters. Band D council tax is £1,686.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS. Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Alford has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Alford does most differently from other towns.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Alford is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Alford has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 3 buildings inside Alford’s locality, 1 of them in the top category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Alford.
Private rents average £869 a month across the Aberdeen and Shire council area. 69% of households are owner-occupiers. Also worth knowing: the median, £198,800, rests on 183 sales in Alford’s data zones from 2023 to 2025.
Registers of Scotland data-zone sale prices · Scottish Government council tax · Scotland’s Census 2022 tenure · OGL · The Scottish median is our estimate from data-zone sales, brought to early-2025 prices.
Below are its two schools. Between them, one primary and one secondary teach 1,034 pupils in Alford.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alford Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 345 | – |
| Alford AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 689 | B+ |
4% of residents described their health as bad or very bad, below Aberdeenshire’s towns (4.5%) and Scotland’s towns (7.2%) alike. Self-reported good health: 83% of Alford’s residents. A disability affects 20% of people here.
| Census 2022 | Alford | Aberdeenshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 83% | 83% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 4% | 4.5% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 20% | 20% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Because the census answers ignore age, a younger population lifts them; that is why the Health Grade is built on age-adjusted measures like life expectancy and early deaths.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Historic Environment Scotland’s list holds 3 listed buildings inside its locality: 1 Category A, 1 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 27% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
There are 0.6 jobs in Alford for each resident in work. Short trips to work, under 5 km: 25%, below Aberdeenshire’s towns (37%) and Scotland’s towns (44%) alike. 14% of commuters who live in Alford also work there.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Just over a fifth of residents have reached 65. People aged 15 to 24 make up 7.8% of the town, below Aberdeenshire’s towns (9.7%) and Scotland’s towns (12%) alike. At 43.7, the median resident of Alford sits in the middle of the age range.
49% women, 51% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Alford | Aberdeenshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 19% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 7.8% | 9.7% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 25% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 22% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 15% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 10% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 33% | 29% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Aberdeenshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Alford. Best known first.
MuseumAlford Valley Railwayin town
MuseumGrampian Transport Museumin town
CastleCastle Forbes4.5 km outside town, to the northeast
CastleAsloun Castle2.6 km outside town, to the westMuseumMuseumAlford Heritage Centre & Museumin townMuseumMuseumThe Bus Collection At Alfordin townPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
The nearest towns and villages, from National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities. See them on the map →
Band D council tax in Alford is £1,686 for 2026–27, less than in 91% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £198,800, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 34th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
GCSE results beat 75% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). Alford has 2 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Alford is a locality of 2,792 people, in the Aberdeenshire council area. TownRatings uses National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities as Scotland’s towns: the physical town, as people mean the word, rather than a council area, so its figures cover the town itself. Localities split the big settlements into their towns, as ONS’s 2022 boundaries split conurbations in England and Wales.
Built from NRS geography and Census 2022
Sources: Scotland’s Census 2022 (National Records of Scotland), output areas summed to the NRS 2022 locality · Registers of Scotland house price statistics, medians and quartiles of residential sales by 2022 data zone, 2004 to 2025 (the 2023 to 2025 headline brought to early-2025 prices with each council’s medians) · Scottish Government, Council Tax by band 2026-27; Scottish Water charges 2026-27 · Scottish Government, Recorded Crime in Scotland (crimes, offences and clear-up rates by council area, 2016-17 to 2025-26); Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020v2 crime domain and SIMD crime indicators (2014/15, 2017/18), 2011 data zones with Census 2022 residents · ONS gross disposable household income by council (2022), scaled to household income on England and Wales’s councils, with Scotland’s Census 2022 households · DWP / ONS Claimant Count via Nomis (2022 data zones, January to August 2026), over residents aged 16 to 64 at Scotland’s Census 2022; council series since 2015 · Scottish Government school contact list (31 July 2026) and school summary statistics (pupil census, September 2025); School Information Dashboard leavers’ attainment by school, 2022-23 to 2024-25 (data.gov.scot) · TownRatings grades: our own summary of the data, ranked against UK towns only. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.