Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A Band D home pays £1,579 in council tax. In Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, this town has 4,134 residents.
Buying a home costs less than in most towns: a typical home costs £151,600 and rent runs £641 a month. Schools are another plus: school leavers’ results beat 78% of Scottish towns. Its lowest grade is for health: life expectancy is 76.7 for men and 81.4 for women. Natural hazards weigh more here (D−): 11.8% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Dalbeattie has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Dalbeattie is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Dalbeattie has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The 3 things Dalbeattie does most differently from other towns.
Historic Environment Scotland lists 16 buildings inside Dalbeattie’s locality, 7 of them in the second category.
The archive holds 2 old photos and postcards going back to 1797.
16 listed buildings in Dalbeattie.
1-11 (Odd Nos), High Street, Dalbeattie Town Hall and 4 Water Street: Photo: G Laird · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Colliston Park Bandstand: Photo: Hugh Close · CC BY-SA 2.0
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Dalbeattie.
67% of households are owner-occupiers. Social renters account for 21% of households. Also worth knowing: the median, £151,600, rests on 216 sales in Dalbeattie’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.
Women here live to 81.4 on average and men to 76.7 (2020–24). Asked at the census, 75% of residents of Dalbeattie said they were in good or very good health.
| Census 2022 | Dalbeattie | Dumfries and Galloway | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 75% | 76% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.6% | 7.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 30% | 27% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · 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 and early deaths.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 23% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
The census counted 23% of workers working mainly from home. 80% of commuters drove, above Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (76%) and Scotland’s towns (70%) alike. For 38% of commuters, work was under 5 km away. About 17% of its commuters stay in Dalbeattie for work.
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.
Dalbeattie has 16 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 7 Category B. For its size, Dalbeattie has the second fewest listed buildings of the towns in Dumfries and Galloway.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
People aged 15 to 24 are 9% of the population. 13% are under 15, below Dumfries and Galloway’s towns (15%) and Scotland’s towns (15%) alike. The age that splits Dalbeattie in two is 52.9. Graduates make up nearly a quarter of adults.
52% women, 48% men
About 94 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.
| Dalbeattie | Dumfries and Galloway | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 13% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9% | 9.9% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 19% | 22% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 31% | 25% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 23% | 23% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 8.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 23% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Dumfries and Galloway and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
6 notable people were born in Dalbeattie.
William McMaster Murdoch: williammurdoch.net, Public domain
Town in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland
Dalbeattie is a locality of 4,134 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
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dalbeattie | 4,134 | — | — | A+ | — | D |
| Castle Douglas | 4,061 | 4.3 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Kirkcudbright | 3,219 | 11 | — | A+ | — | C+ |
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.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Band D council tax in Dalbeattie 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £151,600, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 29th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
GCSE results beat 78% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). Places are handled by the local council.
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.