Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A Band D home pays £1,579 in council tax. The town, home to 8,697 people, lies in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland.
Annan’s strongest is cost of living — homes sell for a median £111,400, about 2.6 times local household income. Fewer journeys need a car: 22% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Schools lag: school leavers’ results beat 5% of Scottish towns. Health lags: life expectancy is 77 for men and 80.1 for women.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Annan without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Annan 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 Annan is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Annan without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 68 buildings inside Annan’s locality, 3 of them in the top category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds 4 old photos and postcards going back to 1890.
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Annan.
Annan is the cheapest of the 10 towns in Dumfries and Galloway: its median sale is £111,400. 28% live in social housing, above Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%) alike. Behind the median of £111,400: 395 sales in the town’s data zones, 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.
Two of its 5 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed. Annan’s four primaries and one secondary have 1,600 pupils between them.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newington SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 291 | – |
| Annan AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 908 | D |
At the census, 74% of people in Annan called their health good or very good, below both Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (76%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). 28% of residents in Annan live with a disability. Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects nearly a tenth of the town.
| Census 2022 | Annan | Dumfries and Galloway | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 74% | 76% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 8.5% | 7.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 28% | 27% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · 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 and early deaths.
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.
For every resident in work, Annan has 0.7 jobs. Of the commuters living in the town, 33% work in the town itself. Short trips to work, under 5 km: 44%, about level with Scotland’s towns (44%) and below Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (60%). Driving is how 76% of commuters got to work at the census.
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.
For its size, Annan has 78 listed buildings per 10,000 residents. 2 scheduled monuments lie in the town.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
The share of residents under 15 is 17%. Annan has a median age of 46.4 years. Nearly a quarter of residents have reached 65.
52% women, 48% men
About 92 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Annan | Dumfries and Galloway | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 17% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 9.9% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 22% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 24% | 25% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 24% | 23% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 8.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 9.9% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 20% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Dumfries and Galloway and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Annan. Best known first.
68 listed buildings in Annan, 3 of them in the top category.
5, 7, 9 High Street ("Old Academy"): Photo: Chris Downer · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Station Road, Annan Station Including Signal Box: Photo: Rosser1954 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 12 Downie's Wynd, Market Hall: Photo: Jonathan Billinger · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph · Bank Street, Former Library and Public Hall: Photo: David Payne · Public domain
15 notable people were born in Annan.
Ashley Jensen: Dominick D, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Jim Wallace, Baron Wallace of Tankerness: Roger Harris, CC BY 3.0 · David Leslie: Darren, CC BY 2.0 · Russell Brown: Contains Mild Peril, CC BY-SA 3.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Annan | 8,697 | — | — | A+ | — | D |
| Gretna | 3,435 | 7.6 | — | A+ | — | C+ |
| Silloth | 2,542 | 9.8 | D− | C | C− | C− |
| Lockerbie | 4,411 | 10 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Longtown | 2,176 | 12 | — | C+ | D | C |
| Wigton | 5,396 | 12 | D− | C− | C− | C− |
Longtown has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade. 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 £111,400, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 4th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
That is 3.2 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include High Street Annan Parish Church and Churchyard Boundary Walls and Gatepiers, (Church of Scotland). It also has 2 scheduled monuments.
Band D council tax in Annan is £1,579 for 2026–27, less than in 96% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
Annan is a locality of 8,697 people, in the Dumfries and Galloway 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.