Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
The average domestic rates bill is £1,347 a year. 10,757 residents make their home in this town in Ards and North Down, Northern Ireland.
Holywood’s strongest is cost of living (A): the median home sold for £282,100, 5.8 years of area income. It also does well on safety — police record 16.2 violent and sexual offences per 1,000 residents a year, and 7.9 home and vehicle crimes. The overall grade comes out at A, #3 of 6 in Ards and North Down and #11 of 63 in Northern Ireland. Nationally, it does better than 92% of UK towns. Elsewhere it is close to typical: B for schools and C+ for health.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry (LPS), 2022 to 2024 at early-2025 prices · crime, police.uk, averaged Sep 2023 to Aug 2026 · life expectancy, ONS.
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 Holywood 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 Holywood is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The Historic Environment Division lists 130 buildings inside Holywood’s settlement, 6 of them in the second grade, and 3 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Holywood. Best known first.
Historic shipResultin town
Historic houseStormont Castle2.5 km outside town, to the south
Historic shipSS Nomadic4.5 km outside town, to the southwest
Historic shipHMS Caroline3.6 km outside town, to the southwest
MuseumUlster Folk and Transport Museum400 m outside town, to the northeast
FortGrey Point Fort3.8 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 Holywood.
71% of households own their home, close to Ards and North Down’s towns (70%) and above Northern Ireland’s towns (59%). Holywood is the most expensive of the 6 towns in Ards and North Down: its median sale is £282,100. The private rented sector houses 13% of households.
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 Holywood, 2022 to 2024, brought to early-2025 prices and weighted by sales.
Holywood’s three primaries and two secondaries have 2,649 pupils between them. Two of its 6 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holywood Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 402 | – |
| Sullivan Upper SchoolLargest post-primary schoolPost-primary | Post-primary | 1,078 | B |
The Census was taken on 21 March 2021, in lockdown, so 30% of workers were mainly at home; shares here are of those who travelled.
77% of commuters drove, below both Ards and North Down’s towns (84%) and Northern Ireland’s towns (79%). There are 1 jobs in Holywood for each resident in work. About 18% of its commuters stay in Holywood for work.
NISRA Census 2021, method of travel to work · OGL
In the 12 months to August 2026, the PSNI logged 334 crimes and 164 reports of anti-social behaviour inside Holywood’s settlement. Of all the crimes, 53% were violence and sexual offences.
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 heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Grade B+ covers 6 of them. One historic park, garden or demesne lies in Holywood. 3 scheduled monuments lie here.
HED list, October 2026 · Valuation Office Agency, homes by build period · OGL
At the census, 6.6% of residents said their health was bad or very bad, below Ards and North Down’s towns (7.3%) and Northern Ireland’s towns (8.7%) alike. Asked at the census, 81% of residents of Holywood said they were in good or very good health. Women here live to 84.7 on average and men to 80.4 (2022–24).
| Census 2021 | Holywood | Ards and North Down | Northern Ireland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 81% | 78% | 77% |
| Bad or very bad health | 6.6% | 7.3% | 8.7% |
| Disabled (Equality Act) | 23% | 25% | 26% |
NISRA Census 2021, general health and disability · NISRA life expectancy by district electoral area, 2022–24 · 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.
Under-15s account for 16% of the population. Young adults of 15 to 24 are 9.1% of residents, below both Ards and North Down’s towns (10%) and Northern Ireland’s towns (12%). A quarter of residents have reached 65. Ages in Holywood split evenly at 47.7: half are older, half younger.
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Northern Ireland, 51% of residents are women. Women live longer than men, so towns with many older residents have more women.
| Holywood | Ards and North Down | Northern Ireland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 17% | 19% |
| 15–24 | 9.1% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 21% | 24% | 27% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 27% | 26% |
| 65+ | 25% | 22% | 17% |
| No qualifications | 16% | 19% | 25% |
| A levels or similar | 13% | 16% | 16% |
| Degree level | 49% | 34% | 32% |
NISRA Census 2021 · Ards and North Down and Northern Ireland: all residents of their settlements · Women and men: whole data zones, which approximate the town’s boundary · OGL
24 notable people were born in Holywood.
Jamie Dornan: Dublin International Film Festival, CC BY 3.0 · Rory McIlroy: Bryan Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Clive Standen: Miguel Discart & Kiri Karma, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Garth Ennis: Nightscream, CC BY 3.0 · Hugh Cairns, 1st Earl Cairns: John Watkins, Public domain
The nearest settlements, from NISRA’s 2015 boundaries. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holywood | 10,757 | — | A | A | B+ | C+ |
| Greenisland | 5,383 | 4.4 | A− | A+ | A− | C+ |
| Metropolitan Castlereagh | 58,763 | 4.5 | A+ | A+ | A− | C |
| Metropolitan Newtownabbey | 67,599 | 5.1 | B+ | A+ | B | C− |
| Belfast | 293,298 | 5.4 | B | A+ | D | D− |
| Carrickfergus | 28,141 | 6.2 | B | A+ | B+ | C− |
| Newtownards | 29,677 | 6.5 | A− | A+ | C+ | C− |
| Bangor | 64,596 | 6.7 | B+ | A+ | B+ | C |
People: Census 2021. Miles: centre to centre.
That is 5 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. It also has 3 scheduled monuments.
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 Ards and North Down is about £1,347 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 Ards and North Down, Northern Ireland
Holywood is a settlement of 10,757 people, in the Ards and North Down 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.