Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
This town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland has a population of 19,793. Band D council tax is £1,686.
Buying a home costs less than in most towns (A+): homes sell for a median £117,500, about 2.3 times local household income. Pupils here do less well than most: school leavers’ results beat 10% of Scottish towns. Health is a weak point: life expectancy 76.1 for men, 80.5 for women. It has 179 listed buildings, 1 of them in the top category.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS. Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Peterhead has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Peterhead 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 Peterhead is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Peterhead has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 179 buildings inside Peterhead’s locality, 1 of them in the top category, and 1 scheduled monument.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Peterhead.
Private renters make up 10% of households, between Aberdeenshire’s towns (8%) and Scotland’s towns (13%). Peterhead is the cheapest of the 23 towns in Aberdeenshire: its median sale is £117,500. Behind the median of £117,500: 879 sales in the town’s data zones, 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.
Of its 8 schools, two are shown below, each with the reason. Some 2,771 pupils attend Peterhead’s six primaries and one secondary.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clerkhill SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 410 | – |
| Peterhead AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,304 | D |
At the census, 6% of people here described their health as bad or very bad. Nearly a quarter of residents have a disability, higher than Aberdeenshire’s towns (20%) and near Scotland’s towns (24%). Asked at the census, 79% of residents of Peterhead said they were in good or very good health.
| Census 2022 | Peterhead | Aberdeenshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 79% | 83% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 6% | 4.5% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 24% | 20% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · A young population flatters these answers, which are not age-adjusted; the Health Grade instead uses measures that allow for age, such as life expectancy and early deaths.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 22% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
For every resident in work, Peterhead has 1.1 jobs. Working mainly from home: 22% of workers, below both Aberdeenshire’s towns (26%) and Scotland’s towns (31%). On foot, by bike or by bus and train: that was how nearly a fifth of commuters travelled at the census. Work in town: 58% of resident commuters.
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.
Peterhead’s listed buildings include Peterhead Old Parish Church, Category A. At the top of the list, 1 are Category A and 78 Category B. Of the town’s land, 2% lies in conservation areas, above both Aberdeenshire’s towns (0%) and Scotland’s towns (1%).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Under-15s account for 16% of the population. The middle age in Peterhead is 41.9. One in ten residents are 15 to 24, between Aberdeenshire’s towns (9.7%) and Scotland’s towns (12%).
50% women, 50% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Peterhead | Aberdeenshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 10% | 9.7% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 27% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 19% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 23% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 10% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 9.2% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 18% | 29% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Aberdeenshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Peterhead. Best known first.
CastleInverugie Castle800 m outside town, to the northwestMuseumMuseumPeterhead Prison Museumin townPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
179 listed buildings in Peterhead, 1 of them in the top category.
Statue of Field Marshall Keith.: Photo: Bill Harrison · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Peterhead Harbour: Photo: Ellievking1 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Reform Tower Meethill: Photo: Michael Riddle · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Bath House, Bath Street Including Gates to Street.: Photo: JThomas · CC BY-SA 2.0
36 notable people were born in Peterhead.
Eric Temple Bell: Carl Rudolph Gist, Public domain · Peter Mullan: Andymiah, CC BY 3.0 · Thomas Summers West: TLW1958, CC BY-SA 3.0
The nearest towns and villages, from National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities. See them on the map →
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £117,500, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 4th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
That is 3.7 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A building is Peterhead Old Parish Church. It also has 1 scheduled monument.
GCSE results trail 91% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8).
Band D council tax in Peterhead 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.
Town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Peterhead is a locality of 19,793 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.