Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,686. 10,138 residents make their home in this town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Ellon’s strongest subject is cost of living (A+): homes sell for a median £176,500, about 3.4 times local household income. Pupils here do better than most: school leavers’ results beat 71% of Scottish towns. It is hard to get around without a car (C+): on the way to work, 12% walk, cycle or take a bus or train. Hazard risk is weaker too (C): 1.8% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · flood risk, SEPA. Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Ellon has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Ellon 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 Ellon is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Ellon has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 17 buildings inside Ellon’s locality, 3 of them in the top category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Ellon.
9% rent privately, higher than Aberdeenshire’s towns (8%) yet lower than Scotland’s towns (13%). Social housing holds just over one in ten households. The median, £176,500, rests on 500 sales in Ellon’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 is one of its 3 schools, and why it was picked. Some 816 pupils attend Ellon’s three primaries.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auchterellon SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 318 | – |
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 25% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Working mainly from home: a quarter of workers, near Aberdeenshire’s towns (26%) and lower than Scotland’s towns (31%). 27% of commuters travelled under 5 km to work. Work in town: 22% of resident commuters. The 2026 claimant rate among 16 to 64s was 1.4%.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Ellon’s listed buildings include Ellon Castle (Old) Sundial at Central Avenue of Garden., Category A. Category B covers 9 of them, Category A 3. The national list protects 2 ancient monuments in the town.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
A disability affects a fifth of people in Ellon. At the census, 83% of people in Ellon called their health good or very good, close to Aberdeenshire’s towns (83%) and above Scotland’s towns (78%). Women here live to 83.1 on average and men to 77.8 (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | Ellon | Aberdeenshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 83% | 83% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 3.7% | 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 · Young towns look healthier on these answers, which aren’t adjusted for age; the Health Grade uses measures that are, such as life expectancy and early deaths.
Retirement age and beyond: 24% of residents are 65 or older. 16% are under 15, below Aberdeenshire’s towns (17%) but above Scotland’s towns (15%). At 45.8, the median resident of Ellon sits in the middle of the age range.
51% women, 49% men
About 95 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Ellon | Aberdeenshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 7.9% | 9.7% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 25% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 24% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 13% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 12% | 10% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 32% | 29% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Aberdeenshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
17 listed buildings in Ellon, 3 of them in the top category.
St. Mary on the Rock Episcopal Church, Ellon: Photo: Sagaciousphil · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Ellon Castle (New): Photo: Sagaciousphil · CC BY-SA 4.0
9 notable people were born in Ellon.
Alexander Mitchell: Cramer, Aikens & Cramer (Milwaukee, WI), printers., Public domain · Patrick Wolrige-Gordon: The Daily Telegraph, CC BY 2.5
The nearest towns and villages, from National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ellon | 10,138 | — | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Newmachar | 2,527 | 8.1 | — | A+ | — | B |
| Oldmeldrum | 3,181 | 9.3 | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Mintlaw | 2,832 | 11 | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Dyce | 6,998 | 12 | — | A− | — | C |
No Scottish town has a Safety Grade or an overall grade yet: Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime. People: Census 2022. Miles: centre to centre.
Band D council tax in Ellon 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 £176,500, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 22nd most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Ellon is a locality of 10,138 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.
