Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Band D council tax is £1,698. With 2,587 residents, it is a town in East Lothian, Scotland.
Hazard risk is its strong suit — 0.1% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding. It takes 5 years of household income in the East Lothian council area to buy the median home, at £267,400. Its weakest is schools: school leavers’ results beat 17% of Scottish towns. Health is weaker too: life expectancy is 77.1 for men and 84.6 for women.
Figures: flood risk, SEPA · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · incomes and life expectancy, ONS. Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Ormiston has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Ormiston 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 Ormiston is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Ormiston has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 18 buildings inside Ormiston’s locality, 13 of them in the second category, and 1 scheduled monument.
The archive holds 1 old photo or postcard.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Ormiston.
Its one school is below. The town’s primary school has 243 pupils.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ormiston Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 243 | – |
At the census, 7.7% of residents said their health was bad or very bad, above both East Lothian’s towns (5.9%) and Scotland’s towns (7.2%). Men in Ormiston can expect to live to 77.1, women to 84.6 (2020–24). Self-reported good health: nearly four fifths of the town’s residents.
| Census 2022 | Ormiston | East Lothian | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 79% | 81% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.7% | 5.9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 27% | 23% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · The census answers take no account of age, so a young town looks healthier; the Health Grade relies on age-adjusted measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Relative to its size, Ormiston keeps 70 listed buildings per 10,000 residents. Conservation areas cover 9% of the town’s land, below East Lothian’s towns (16%) but above Scotland’s towns (1%). Category B covers 13 of them.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Social renters account for just over a third of households. Owners make up 57% of households, lower than both East Lothian’s towns (66%) and Scotland’s towns (60%). Also worth knowing: the median, £267,400, rests on 99 sales in Ormiston’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.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 29% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Of the commuters living in Ormiston, 2% work in the town itself. 15% of commuters walked, cycled or took the bus or train at the census, below East Lothian’s towns (28%) and Scotland’s towns (27%) alike. For 15% of commuters, work was under 5 km away.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Children under 15 make up 17%, close to East Lothian’s towns (17%) and above Scotland’s towns (15%). The share aged 15 to 24 is 10%. Half the people of Ormiston are older than 43.1.
50% women, 50% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Ormiston | East Lothian | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 17% | 17% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 10% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 26% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 21% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 16% | 15% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 8.5% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 24% | 33% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · East Lothian and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Ormiston. Best known first.
CastleFa'side Castle3 km outside town, to the northwest
Historic houseCarberry Tower4.1 km outside town, to the west
CastlePreston Tower4.7 km outside town, to the north
CastleOxenfoord Castle3.7 km outside town, to the southwestAttractionAttractionThe Great Yew of Ormiston1.1 km outside town, to the southAttractionAttractionBattle of Pinkie Cleugh Memorial Stone4.5 km outside town, to the northwestPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
18 listed buildings in Ormiston.
Ormiston,market cross: Photo: Mainlymazza · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Main Street, Ormiston Parish Church with Retaining Walls: Photo: Mainlymazza · CC BY-SA 4.0
4 notable people were born in Ormiston.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ormiston | 2,587 | — | — | B | — | C− |
| Tranent | 12,235 | 2.1 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Wallyford | 4,493 | 3.1 | — | B− | — | D |
| Prestonpans | 10,623 | 3.3 | — | A− | — | D |
| Cockenzie | 5,237 | 4 | — | B+ | — | C |
| Musselburgh | 21,476 | 4.5 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Dalkeith | 15,125 | 4.6 | — | B | — | C− |
| Longniddry | 2,598 | 4.8 | — | C− | — | 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.
That is 2.9 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. It also has 1 scheduled monument.
One state school is inside the town; places are handled by the local council.
Band D council tax in Ormiston is £1,698 for 2026–27, less than in 89% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Town in East Lothian, Scotland
Ormiston is a locality of 2,587 people, in the East Lothian 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.
