Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
The town has 3,181 residents and lies in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Council tax at Band D comes to £1,686.
Cost of living is its strong suit — the median home sold for £234,600, 4.5 years of area income. Schools are another plus: school leavers’ results beat nearly two thirds of Scottish towns. Its remaining grades are unremarkable: C+ for health and C+ for walkability. Its listed buildings number 37, with 0 at Category A.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · commuting, Census 2022. Oldmeldrum has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Oldmeldrum 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 Oldmeldrum is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Oldmeldrum 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 →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 37 buildings inside Oldmeldrum’s locality, 10 of them in the second category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Oldmeldrum.
Nearly three quarters of households are owner-occupiers. 143 sales in Oldmeldrum’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £234,600. Private rents average £869 a month across the Aberdeen and Shire council area.
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.
Both of its schools are shown below. Between them, one primary and one secondary teach 1,439 pupils in Oldmeldrum. Its two schools are below.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meldrum SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 382 | – |
| Meldrum AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,057 | B |
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Of Oldmeldrum’s land, 12% lies in conservation areas, higher than both Aberdeenshire’s towns (0%) and Scotland’s towns (1%). The town has 37 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 10 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; 28% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Oldmeldrum counts 0.9 jobs per working resident. Nearly a fifth of commuters travelled under 5 km, below Aberdeenshire’s towns (37%) and Scotland’s towns (44%) alike. Driving is how 82% of commuters got to work at the census. About 13% of its commuters stay in Oldmeldrum for work.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
84% of Oldmeldrum’s residents described their health as good or very good at the census, higher than both Aberdeenshire’s towns (83%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). A disability affects a fifth of people here. Women here live to 83.5 on average and men to 79.4 (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | Oldmeldrum | Aberdeenshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 84% | 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 · Self-reported health favours young towns, since these answers ignore age; the Health Grade leans on age-adjusted measures such as life expectancy and early deaths.
Aged 15 to 24: 9.7% of residents. Half of Oldmeldrum is older than 42.4, half younger. Among adults, 35% have a degree.
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Oldmeldrum | Aberdeenshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 19% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.7% | 9.7% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 24% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 19% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 12% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.7% | 10% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 35% | 29% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Aberdeenshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
37 listed buildings in Oldmeldrum.
Weigh Office and Cart Shed, Oldmeldrum Station: Photo: Bill Harrison · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph · Morris's Hotel, Market Square.: Photo: Andrew Wood · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph · Cromlet House: Photo: Andrew Wood · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph · Meldrum Arms Hotel, Main Building.: Photo: Andrew Wood · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
6 notable people were born in Oldmeldrum.
William Keith: W.E. Dassomniu, Public domain
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oldmeldrum | 3,181 | — | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Inverurie | 15,115 | 4.2 | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Newmachar | 2,527 | 6.9 | — | A+ | — | B |
| Kintore | 4,545 | 7.3 | — | A+ | — | A |
| Kemnay | 3,864 | 8.3 | — | A+ | — | C |
| Blackburn | 2,985 | 9 | — | A+ | — | A |
| Ellon | 10,138 | 9.3 | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Dyce | 6,998 | 11 | — | 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.
That is 4.8 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size.
Band D council tax in Oldmeldrum 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.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Oldmeldrum is a locality of 3,181 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.