Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,599. Some 6,000 people live in this town, in Angus, Scotland.
Buying a home costs less than in most towns: a typical home costs £157,200 and rent runs £838 a month. Walkability is a strength too — on the way to work, 17% walk, cycle or take a bus or train. Its weakest is health — life expectancy 78.6 for men, 82.7 for women. Its other grades sit near the middle: B− for schools and B for hazard risk.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Kirriemuir has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
The 3 things Kirriemuir 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 Kirriemuir is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Kirriemuir has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 104 buildings inside Kirriemuir’s locality, 1 of them in the top category.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Kirriemuir. Best known first.
MuseumGateway to the Glens Museumin town
MuseumTayside Police Museumin town
Historic houseGlamis Castle4.9 km outside town, to the south
CastleCortachy Castle3.9 km outside town, to the north
CastleInverquharity Castle3.3 km outside town, to the northeastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Kirriemuir.
66% of households are owner-occupiers. Social housing holds 21% of households, lower than both Angus’ towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). The median, £157,200, rests on 284 sales in Kirriemuir’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 1,113 pupils in Kirriemuir. Two of its 3 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Northmuir Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 314 | – |
| Webster's High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 640 | B− |
Men in Kirriemuir can expect to live to 78.6, women to 82.7 (2020–24). At the census, 26% of people here had a disability, near Angus’ towns (26%) and higher than Scotland’s towns (24%).
| Census 2022 | Kirriemuir | Angus | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 79% | 78% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 6.9% | 6.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 26% | 26% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · These answers aren’t adjusted for age, so young towns look healthier; the Health Grade uses age-adjusted measures, including life expectancy and early deaths.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 26% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
For every resident in work, Kirriemuir has 0.5 jobs. Short trips to work, under 5 km: 27%, below Angus’ towns (41%) and Scotland’s towns (44%) alike. 3.3% of 16 to 64s claimed unemployment benefits in 2026. Work in town: just over a fifth 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.
At the top of the list, 1 are Category A and 23 Category B. Kirriemuir’s listed buildings include St. Mary's Episcopal Church, West Hillbank, Category A. Of the town’s 104 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list, Category A counts 1 and Category B 23.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
9.7% of residents are 15 to 24, near Angus’ towns (10%) and lower than Scotland’s towns (12%). Ages in Kirriemuir split evenly at 50.2: half are older, half younger. Graduates make up 29% of adults.
53% women, 47% men
About 89 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women. Women live longer than men, so towns with many older residents have more women.
| Kirriemuir | Angus | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.7% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 19% | 23% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 27% | 25% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 17% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.8% | 10% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 29% | 25% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Angus and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
104 listed buildings in Kirriemuir, 1 of them in the top category.
Wash-House the Tenements Brechin Road: Photo: Darrin Antrobus · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Airlie Arms Hotel, St. Malcolm's Wynd: Photo: Russel Wills · CC BY-SA 2.0
12 notable people were born in Kirriemuir.
J. M. Barrie: Herbert Rose Barraud, Public domain · Mary Davidson Gunn: SANBI-Adela Romanowski, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Alexander Whyte: John Moffat, Public domain · James Aitken Wylie: Hill & Adamson, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kirriemuir | 6,000 | — | — | A | — | C− |
| Forfar | 13,774 | 5 | — | A | — | D |
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 7.1 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A building is St. Mary's Episcopal Church, West Hillbank.
Band D council tax in Kirriemuir is £1,599 for 2026–27, less than in 95% 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 £157,200, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 169th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in Angus, Scotland
Kirriemuir is a locality of 6,000 people, in the Angus 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.