Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,686. A town of 3,864 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Where it does best is cost of living — homes sell for a median £203,400, about 3.9 times local household income. Schools do well: school leavers’ results beat 89% of Scottish towns. Health is a weak point: men here can expect to live to 79.5, women to 79.2. It lags on hazard risk as well — 5.8% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Kemnay has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Kemnay is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Kemnay has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The 3 things Kemnay does most differently from other towns.
Historic Environment Scotland lists 5 buildings inside Kemnay’s locality, 2 of them in the second category.
The archive holds 1 old photo or postcard going back to 1904.
Explore the history →5 listed buildings in Kemnay.
Kemnay Parish Church, Morthouse: Photo: Bill Harrison · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph · James Mitchell Memorial, Kemnay: Photo: Ralph Greig · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Kemnay.
Council and housing-body homes hold 28% of households. Two thirds of households own their home, lower than Aberdeenshire’s towns (70%) yet higher than Scotland’s towns (60%). The median, £203,400, rests on 132 sales in Kemnay’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.
Between them, two primaries and one secondary teach 1,303 pupils in Kemnay. Below are two of its 3 schools, each with why it was picked. Kemnay Academy’s results beat 85% of schools in Scotland like it.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kemnay Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 223 | – |
| Kemnay AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 964 | A |
Women here live to 79.2 on average and men to 79.5 (2020–24). At the census, just over a fifth of people here had a disability, about level with Aberdeenshire’s towns (20%) and below Scotland’s towns (24%). Self-reported good health: 82% of Kemnay’s residents.
| Census 2022 | Kemnay | Aberdeenshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 82% | 83% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 4.2% | 4.5% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 21% | 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.
Per 10,000 residents, Kemnay counts 13 listed buildings, below both Aberdeenshire’s towns (24) and Scotland’s towns (22).
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; 29% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
In 2026, 3.1% of 16 to 64s were claiming unemployment benefits. 83% of commuters drove, above both Aberdeenshire’s towns (77%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). For 16% of commuters, work was under 5 km away. About 10% of its commuters stay in Kemnay for work.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
The 15-to-24 age group: 10%, about level with Aberdeenshire’s towns (9.7%) and below Scotland’s towns (12%). Retirement age and beyond: just over a fifth of residents are 65 or older. The age that splits Kemnay in two is 43.5.
53% women, 47% men
About 89 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Kemnay | Aberdeenshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 18% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 10% | 9.7% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 24% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 26% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 21% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 16% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.8% | 10% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 28% | 29% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Aberdeenshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Kemnay. Best known first.
Castle · National Trust for ScotlandCastle Fraser3 km outside town, to the south
CastleHallforest Castle (ruin)3.3 km outside town, to the east
CastleCluny Castle4.7 km outside town, to the southwestRuinsRuins · Historic Environment ScotlandKinkell Church4.9 km outside town, to the northeastHistoric siteHistoric siteEast Aquhorthies Stone Circle3.5 km outside town, to the northPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Kemnay is a locality of 3,864 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
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kemnay | 3,864 | — | — | A+ | — | C |
| Kintore | 4,545 | 3.4 | — | A+ | — | A |
| Inverurie | 15,115 | 4.1 | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Blackburn | 2,985 | 6.2 | — | A+ | — | A |
| Westhill | 11,778 | 7.9 | — | A+ | — | A |
| Oldmeldrum | 3,181 | 8.3 | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Insch | 2,685 | 9.7 | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Newmachar | 2,527 | 9.7 | — | A+ | — | B |
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.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
GCSE results beat 89% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). Kemnay has 3 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Band D council tax in Kemnay 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 £203,400, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 39th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
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.
