Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
With 8,965 residents, it is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Buying a home costs less than in most towns: the median home sold for £198,900, 3.8 years of area income. The rest of its grades are middling: B for schools, B− for health, C+ for walkability and B− for hazard risk. 13% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Council tax at Band D comes to £1,686.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · commuting, Census 2022 · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Portlethen has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Portlethen is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Portlethen has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The 3 things Portlethen does most differently from other towns.
Historic Environment Scotland lists 1 building inside Portlethen’s locality, and 1 scheduled monument.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Portlethen.
6% rent privately, below both Aberdeenshire’s towns (8%) and Scotland’s towns (13%). 395 sales in Portlethen’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £198,900. 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.
Of its 4 schools, two are shown below, each with the reason. Some 1,864 pupils attend Portlethen’s three primaries and one secondary.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hillside SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 446 | – |
| Portlethen AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 956 | B |
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
No town in Aberdeenshire has fewer listed buildings for its size than Portlethen. One scheduled monument lies locally.
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.
23% of commuters travelled under 5 km, below both Aberdeenshire’s towns (37%) and Scotland’s towns (44%). The 2026 claimant rate among 16 to 64s was 1.5%. Of the commuters living in Portlethen, 17% work in the town itself. For every resident in work, Portlethen has 0.6 jobs.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Self-reported good health: 87% of Portlethen’s residents. At the census, 3.3% of residents said their health was bad or very bad, below both Aberdeenshire’s towns (4.5%) and Scotland’s towns (7.2%). Men in Portlethen can expect to live to 79.6, women to 82.9 (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | Portlethen | Aberdeenshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 87% | 83% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 3.3% | 4.5% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 16% | 20% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · No age adjustment applies to these census answers, which flatter younger towns; the Health Grade’s measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them, do allow for age.
The 15-to-24 age group: 8.9%, lower than both Aberdeenshire’s towns (9.7%) and Scotland’s towns (12%). 14% of residents are 65 or over. The middle age in Portlethen is 40.3.
51% women, 49% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Portlethen | Aberdeenshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 21% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 8.9% | 9.7% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 29% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 14% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 10% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 11% | 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
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Portlethen. Best known first.
CastleMuchalls Castle4.3 km outside town, to the southwest
MuseumBlairs Museum3 km outside town, to the northwestTheme parkTheme parkThe Den & the Glen3.7 km outside town, to the northwestPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Portlethen is a locality of 8,965 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portlethen | 8,965 | — | — | A+ | — | B− |
| Newtonhill | 3,182 | 2.2 | — | A+ | — | A− |
| Cove Bay | 7,926 | 3.2 | — | B+ | — | B− |
| Milltimber | 3,049 | 4.7 | — | C− | — | B+ |
| Peterculter | 4,359 | 5.6 | — | A− | — | C+ |
| Aberdeen | 192,968 | 6.2 | — | A− | — | C− |
| Kingswells | 4,776 | 7.3 | — | C | — | B+ |
| Stonehaven | 11,164 | 7.4 | — | 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 Portlethen 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 £198,900, 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 63% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8).
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.