Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
The average domestic rates bill is £1,078 a year. 10,850 residents make their home in this town in Antrim and Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland.
Buying a home costs less than in most towns: homes sell for a median £193,100, about 3.8 times local household income. Add safety to its strengths — 15.2 violent or sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year, plus 6.1 home and vehicle crimes. Pupils here do less well than most: GCSE results beat 16% of Northern Ireland towns. Put together, the subjects come to a B overall, better than 65% of UK towns. It ranks #44 of 63 in Northern Ireland.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry (LPS), 2022 to 2024 at early-2025 prices · crime, police.uk, averaged Sep 2023 to Aug 2026.
This town's Cost Grade uses house prices and the domestic rates bill: Northern Ireland has no council tax, and no rents are published for its council areas. This town's Health Grade uses NISRA's life expectancy for its district electoral area (2022 to 2024) and two Census 2021 measures, bad health and disability, adjusted for age. Healthy life expectancy and the early-death and hospital measures English towns use aren't published for small areas in Northern Ireland. This town's School Grade uses GCSE results at the post-primary schools its children travel to, grammar and non-grammar, compared with schools across Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland publishes no primary school results. Northern Ireland has no Jobs Grade (no small-area income, claimant or job-access data is published) and no Hazards Grade (its flood maps aren't open data).
The 3 things Ballyclare does most differently from other towns.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Northern Ireland), ordered by how far Ballyclare is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The Historic Environment Division lists 3 buildings inside Ballyclare’s settlement, and 1 scheduled monument.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Ballyclare.
No town in Antrim and Newtownabbey costs more to buy into than Ballyclare, at £193,100, the highest of 5. Social housing holds 12% of households, below both Antrim and Newtownabbey’s towns (16%) and Northern Ireland’s towns (20%). The owner-occupied share of households is 70%.
NISRA / Land & Property Services ward sale prices and domestic rates · NISRA Census 2021 tenure · OGL · The figure is NISRA’s median sale price for the wards around Ballyclare, 2022 to 2024, brought to early-2025 prices and weighted by sales.
Two of its 5 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed. Ballyclare’s two primaries and two secondaries have 3,294 pupils between them.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fairview Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 519 | – |
| Ballyclare High SchoolLargest post-primary schoolPost-primary | Post-primary | 1,247 | B |
At the census, nearly a quarter of people here had a disability, lower than both Antrim and Newtownabbey’s towns (25%) and Northern Ireland’s towns (26%). Women here live to 82.5 on average and men to 79.5 (2022–24). 79% of Ballyclare’s residents described their health as good or very good in 2021, against 78% across Antrim and Newtownabbey’s towns.
| Census 2021 | Ballyclare | Antrim and Newtownabbey | Northern Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 79% | 78% | 77% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.1% | 8% | 8.7% |
| Disabled (Equality Act) | 24% | 25% | 26% |
NISRA Census 2021, general health and disability · NISRA life expectancy by district electoral area, 2022–24 · OGL · Census health answers are raw, so younger towns score better on them; for the Health Grade we use age-adjusted figures like life expectancy.
Violence and sexual offences accounted for 57% of recorded crime. Over the year to August 2026, 283 offences were reported in Ballyclare, along with 259 incidents of anti-social behaviour. Anti-social behaviour, shown but not graded, came to 21.7 reports per 1,000, higher than Antrim and Newtownabbey’s towns (18.4) and near Northern Ireland’s towns (20.7).
Not gradedAnti-social behaviour, shoplifting and other theft are shown but left out of the Safety Grade, which counts violence and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident.
data.police.uk street-level crime · points inside the NISRA settlement boundary · OGL · The police category of violence and sexual offences includes harassment and stalking.
The Census was taken on 21 March 2021, in lockdown, so 18% of workers were mainly at home; shares here are of those who travelled.
Work in town: 18% of resident commuters. The car took 88% of commuters, above both Antrim and Newtownabbey’s towns (84%) and Northern Ireland’s towns (79%). For every resident in work, Ballyclare has 0.5 jobs.
NISRA Census 2021, method of travel to work · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
One scheduled monument lies in Ballyclare. No town in Antrim and Newtownabbey has fewer listed buildings for its size than Ballyclare.
HED list, October 2026 · Valuation Office Agency, homes by build period · OGL
Young adults of 15 to 24 are 11% of the population. Half the people of Ballyclare are older than 40.5. 19% of residents are children under 15.
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Northern Ireland, 51% of residents are women.
| Ballyclare | Antrim and Newtownabbey | Northern Ireland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 19% | 19% | 19% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 26% | 27% | 27% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 26% | 26% |
| 65+ | 17% | 17% | 17% |
| No qualifications | 23% | 23% | 25% |
| A levels or similar | 17% | 16% | 16% |
| Degree level | 31% | 30% | 32% |
NISRA Census 2021 · Antrim and Newtownabbey and Northern Ireland: all residents of their settlements · Women and men: whole data zones, which approximate the town’s boundary · OGL
14 notable people were born in Ballyclare.
Paddy McNair: Tadeáš Bednarz, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Andy Cairns: Selbymay, CC BY 4.0 · Neil Duff: Darts Actueel, CC BY 3.0 · Paul Girvan: Richard Townshend, CC BY 3.0 · Steve Aiken: Northern Ireland Assembly (YouTube channel) Screengrab at 1:15:20, CC BY 3.0 · James Agnew: John Watt Beattie, Public domain
The nearest settlements, from NISRA’s 2015 boundaries. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ballyclare | 10,850 | — | B | A+ | A− | C− |
| Metropolitan Newtownabbey | 67,599 | 5.9 | B+ | A+ | B | C− |
| Greenisland | 5,383 | 6.6 | A− | A+ | A− | C+ |
| Carrickfergus | 28,141 | 8 | B | A+ | B+ | C− |
| Antrim | 25,606 | 8.4 | B− | A+ | C | D |
| Larne | 18,853 | 9.9 | B | A+ | C+ | C− |
| Holywood | 10,757 | 11 | A | A | B+ | C+ |
| Belfast | 293,298 | 11 | B | A+ | D | D− |
People: Census 2021. Miles: centre to centre.
Northern Ireland publishes no primary results. 2 post-primary schools are inside the town; places are handled by the Education Authority.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale in 2022 to 2024, at early-2025 prices, was £193,100, against £277,000 in the typical UK town. On cost of living it is the 44th most affordable of 63 Northern Ireland towns.
Northern Ireland has no council tax: homes pay domestic rates, set on the home’s capital value, and the rates also pay for water. The average bill in Antrim and Newtownabbey is about £1,078 a year for 2026–27, against England’s average council tax per home of £1,868. Your own bill depends on your home’s value; check it with Land & Property Services on nidirect.
Town in Antrim and Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland
Ballyclare is a settlement of 10,850 people, in the Antrim and Newtownabbey council area. TownRatings uses NISRA’s settlements (the 2015 Settlement Development Limits) as Northern Ireland’s towns: the physical town, as people mean the word, rather than a council district, so its figures cover the town itself.
Built from NISRA geography and Census 2021
Sources: NISRA Census 2021, data zones best-fitted to the NISRA Settlement Development Limits 2015 (settlement totals from NISRA where it publishes them) · NISRA / Land & Property Services verified residential sales by ward, 2005 to 2024, new and existing dwellings (medians; the 2022 to 2024 headline brought to early-2025 prices with the LPS house price index, which runs to 2026) · Land & Property Services domestic rates paid by council, 2025-26, and Department of Finance rate poundages 2026-27 · data.police.uk street-level crime (Police Service of Northern Ireland), 36 months to August 2026, points inside the settlement boundary · NISRA life expectancy by district electoral area (2022 to 2024) and NISRA Census 2021 general health and disability, adjusted for age · ONS gross disposable household income by council (2022), scaled to household income on England and Wales’s councils · Department of Education examination performance at post-primary schools 2024/25 and school-level enrolment data 2025/26 · 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.