Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A large town of 28,507 in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland. Band D council tax is £1,752.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Bearsden has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is health (A): life expectancy 83.4 for men, 86 for women. Its weakest is hazard risk (C−): 2.3% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea. The median home sold for £391,900 in the last three years, 6.9 times what households in the East Dunbartonshire council area earn in a year.
The 3 things Bearsden 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 Bearsden is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Bearsden has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 64 buildings inside Bearsden’s locality, 3 of them in the top category, and 7 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Bearsden. Best known first.
Big drawMuseumKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum4.1 km outside town, to the southeast · 1M visitors a year
Big drawMuseumRiverside Museum4.1 km outside town, to the south · 1.1M visitors a year (2015)
GardenGlasgow Botanic Gardens3 km outside town, to the southeast
MuseumHunterian Museum3.8 km outside town, to the southeast
CathedralGreek Orthodox Cathedral of St Luke2.8 km outside town, to the southeast
CastleMugdock Castle3.5 km outside town, to the northPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Bearsden.
That puts Bearsden above both East Dunbartonshire’s towns (43%) and Scotland’s towns (32%). People 65 and over make up 26% of the town. Bearsden has a median age of 48.
52% women, 48% men
About 92 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.
| Bearsden | East Dunbartonshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 17% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.3% | 9.4% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 19% | 21% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 26% | 24% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 7.8% | 12% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 5% | 6.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 56% | 43% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · East Dunbartonshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Bearsden Academy’s results beat nearly every one of schools in Scotland like it. Three of its 10 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bearsden Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 443 | – |
| Bearsden AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,219 | A+ |
| Boclair AcademyTop results in townSecondary | Secondary | 1,032 | A+ |
Women here live to 86 on average and men to 83.4 (2020–24). 3.7% of residents described their health as bad or very bad, below both East Dunbartonshire’s towns (5.6%) and Scotland’s towns (7.2%). 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 | Bearsden | East Dunbartonshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 85% | 82% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 3.7% | 5.6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 18% | 21% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 38% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
On this, Bearsden is below both East Dunbartonshire’s towns (1.7%) and Scotland’s towns (2.8%). For 23% of commuters, work was under 5 km away.
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.
In the comparison, Bearsden comes above both East Dunbartonshire’s towns (3%) and Scotland’s towns (1%). No town in East Dunbartonshire has more listed buildings for its size than Bearsden. Bearsden’s listed buildings include Kilmardinny House, Category A.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
For Bearsden, that is above both East Dunbartonshire’s towns (82%) and Scotland’s towns (60%). 4% of households rent privately. Bearsden is the most expensive of the 7 towns in East Dunbartonshire: its median sale is £391,900.
Registers of Scotland data-zone sale prices · Scottish Government council tax · Scotland’s Census 2022 tenure · OGL
64 listed buildings in Bearsden, 3 of them in the top category.
Kilmardinny House: Photo: Louise Harris · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Bearsden Station,Roman bath-house 400m NE of: Photo: Lindsay Robertson · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Maryhill Road, Killermont Bridge: Photo: Richard Sutcliffe · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Garscube Mill: Photo: Richard Sutcliffe · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
11 notable people were born in Bearsden.
David J. Thouless: Mary Levin, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Michelle Thomson: Scottish Parliament, CC BY 3.0 · Moultrie Kelsall: Crown Film Unit, Public domain
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bearsden | 28,507 | — | — | B− | — | A |
| Milngavie | 12,758 | 1.7 | — | A− | — | B |
| Faifley | 4,785 | 2.4 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Clydebank | 26,220 | 3 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Duntocher and Hardgate | 6,573 | 3.1 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Renfrew | 23,812 | 3.9 | — | A | — | D |
| Erskine | 14,857 | 4.7 | — | A | — | C− |
| Bishopbriggs | 23,759 | 4.7 | — | A | — | B− |
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.
At the 2022 Census, 9.3% of Bearsden’s 28,507 residents were 15 to 24 and 26% were 65 or over, against 12% and 19% across Scotland’s towns.
GCSE results beat 76% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8).
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Homes cost more than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £391,900, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 285th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Large town in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland
Bearsden is a locality of 28,507 people, in the East Dunbartonshire 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.