Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Secondary school results beat 100% of Scottish towns. With 12,758 residents, it is a town in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland.
Pupils here do better than most: school leavers’ results beat 100% of Scottish towns. Fewer journeys need a car (A): on the way to work, 23% walk, cycle or take a bus or train. Hazard risk is its weak spot — 1.7% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding. Buying the median home, at £288,000, takes 5 years of household income in the East Dunbartonshire council area.
Figures: commuting, Census 2022 · flood risk, SEPA · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · incomes, ONS. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Milngavie without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Milngavie is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Milngavie without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The 3 things Milngavie does most differently from other towns.
Historic Environment Scotland lists 14 buildings inside Milngavie’s locality, 6 of them in the second category.
Explore the history →14 listed buildings in Milngavie.
Cairns Church, Buchanan Street.: Photo: Stephen McKay · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Gavins Mill, Gavins Mill Road: Photo: Richard Sutcliffe · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph · Craigallion Lodge, Mugdoch Road: Photo: Richard Sutcliffe · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Mugdock Reservoir, Mugdock Cottage (Former Glasgow Corporation Water Works): Photo: Richard Sutcliffe · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Milngavie.
Of its 4 schools, two are shown below, each with the reason. Douglas Academy’s results beat 98% of schools in Scotland like it. Some 1,889 pupils attend Milngavie’s three primaries and one secondary.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Milngavie Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 323 | – |
| Douglas AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,044 | A+ |
28% of residents are 65 or over, above East Dunbartonshire’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (19%) alike. Aged 15 to 24: 9% of residents. Line up the people of Milngavie by age and the one in the middle is 50.4.
52% women, 48% men
About 91 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.
| Milngavie | East Dunbartonshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9% | 9.4% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 18% | 21% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 30% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 28% | 24% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 11% | 12% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 6.1% | 6.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 49% | 43% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · East Dunbartonshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 35% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
For every resident in work, Milngavie has 0.7 jobs. About just over a tenth of its commuters stay in Milngavie for work. 24% of commuters travelled under 5 km to work. The car took 75% of commuters, below East Dunbartonshire’s towns (77%) but above Scotland’s towns (70%).
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Households that own their home make up 82%. Private renters make up 6% of households, close to East Dunbartonshire’s towns (6%) and below Scotland’s towns (13%). 11% of households live in social housing.
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 85.5 on average and men to 81.1 (2020–24). 21% of residents have a disability, near East Dunbartonshire’s towns (21%) and lower than Scotland’s towns (24%).
| Census 2022 | Milngavie | East Dunbartonshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 82% | 82% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 5.4% | 5.6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 21% | 21% | 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.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Category B covers 6 of them. Milngavie counts 14 listed buildings on the national list (Historic Environment Scotland): 6 Category B. It has one registered historic park or garden.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
8 notable people were born in Milngavie.
Greg Docherty: Timmy96, CC0 · Anna Shackley: Hoebele, CC BY-SA 4.0 · John Bethune: Thebees1889, CC BY-SA 4.0
Town in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland
Milngavie is a locality of 12,758 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
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Milngavie | 12,758 | — | — | A− | — | B |
| Bearsden | 28,507 | 1.7 | — | B− | — | A |
| Faifley | 4,785 | 2.9 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Duntocher and Hardgate | 6,573 | 3.6 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Clydebank | 26,220 | 4 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Bishopbriggs | 23,759 | 4.9 | — | A | — | B− |
| Lennoxtown | 4,162 | 5.3 | — | A | — | D |
| Bowling and Old Kilpatrick | 4,761 | 5.3 | — | B+ | — | 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.
GCSE results beat almost all towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8).
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
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.