Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 11,241 in Angus, Scotland.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Montrose has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is walkability (A): 28% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Its weakest is schools (D): school leavers’ results beat 5% of Scottish towns. The median home sold for £125,500 in the last three years, 2.9 times what households in the Angus council area earn in a year.
The 3 things Montrose 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 Montrose is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Montrose has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 268 buildings inside Montrose’s locality, 11 of them in the top category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Montrose.
Two of its 5 schools are below, each with why it’s listed. The grade uses the secondaries its children go to; Scotland publishes no primary results by school.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lochside Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 322 | – |
| Montrose AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 878 | D |
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.
68% of commuters drove, below both Angus’ towns (76%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). For 51% of commuters, work was under 5 km away.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
On this, Montrose is below both Angus’ towns (£151K) and Scotland’s towns (£174K). Only one of the 7 towns in Angus costs less to buy into than Montrose, whose median sale is £125,500.
Registers of Scotland data-zone sale prices · Scottish Government council tax · Scotland’s Census 2022 tenure · OGL
Women here live to 80.9 on average and men to 77 (2020–24). Of the 7 towns in Angus, Montrose has the second-largest share in bad or very bad health: 7%. 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.
| Census 2022 | Montrose | Angus | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 77% | 78% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7% | 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
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Montrose has 268 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 11 Category A, 104 Category B. Montrose has 238 listed buildings for every 10,000 residents, above both Angus’ towns (80) and Scotland’s towns (22).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
In the comparison, Montrose comes below both Angus’ towns (25%) and Scotland’s towns (32%). People 65 and over make up 23% of the town. Montrose has a median age of 45.8.
51% women, 49% men
About 96 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Montrose | Angus | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 24% | 23% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 23% | 25% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 21% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 10% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 9.3% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 22% | 25% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Angus and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Montrose. Best known first.
MuseumMontrose Museumin town
MuseumMontrose Air Station Museumin town
Historic house · National Trust for ScotlandHouse of Dun2.6 km outside town, to the west
CastleDunninald Castle3 km outside town, to the southHistoric siteHistoric siteGloster Meteor T.7in townHistoric siteHistoric siteHelicopterin townPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
268 listed buildings in Montrose, 11 of them in the top category.
Eastern Road and Paton's Lane, Chapel Works or Bond (Centre Buildings) to Paton's Lane: Photo: Leslie Barrie · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 1-8 (Inclusive Nos) Panmure Terrace Including Boundary Walls: Photo: Ann Harrison · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Montrose North, Signal Box: Photo: Bascharlau · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Traill Drive, Traill Pavilion: Photo: Bascharlau · CC BY-SA 4.0
50 notable people were born in Montrose.
Alexander Burnes: William Brockedon, Public domain · John McGovern: Christophe95, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Joseph Hume: John Whitehead Walton, Public domain · John Wishart: AJWishart, CC BY-SA 4.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Montrose | 11,241 | — | — | A | — | D |
| Brechin | 7,180 | 7.2 | — | A | — | D |
| Laurencekirk | 3,276 | 8 | — | A+ | — | B− |
| Arbroath | 23,487 | 11 | — | 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £125,500, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 147th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
That is 9.8 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Bridge Street, Montrose Infirmary, Including Ancillary Structures to North, And Boundary Walls and Gatepiers to Bridge Street.
Band D council tax in Montrose 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.
Town in Angus, Scotland
Montrose is a locality of 11,241 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.