Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A Band D home pays £1,620 in council tax. With 11,963 residents, it is a town in East Renfrewshire, Scotland.
Giffnock’s strongest subject is schools (A): school leavers’ results beat 85% of Scottish towns. Walkability is another plus — a fifth of commuters get to work on foot, by bike or by public transport. Hazard risk is higher than most (D): 4.6% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea. Homes sell for a median £345,700, about 5.8 years of what households in the East Renfrewshire council area earn.
Figures: commuting, Census 2022 · flood risk, SEPA · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · incomes, ONS. Giffnock has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Giffnock 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 Giffnock is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Giffnock has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 10 buildings inside Giffnock’s locality, 6 of them in the second category.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Giffnock. Best known first.
Historic house · National Trust for ScotlandPollok House2.1 km outside town, to the northwest
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandCrookston Castle4.1 km outside town, to the northwest
MuseumGlasgow Science Centre5 km outside town, to the north
Museum · National Trust for ScotlandHolmwood House1 km outside town, to the east
AttractionGlasgow Tower5 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 Giffnock.
Degrees are held by 53% of adults, above both East Renfrewshire’s towns (44%) and Scotland’s towns (32%). Young adults of 15 to 24 account for 9.5% of the town. Giffnock has a median age of 50. The under-15s are 16% of the population here.
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.
| Giffnock | East Renfrewshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 18% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.5% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 18% | 21% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 29% | 22% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 9.9% | 12% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 4.5% | 6% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 12% | 11% |
| Degree level | 53% | 44% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · East Renfrewshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
St Ninian's High School’s results beat nearly every one of schools in Scotland like it. Below are two of its 3 schools, each with why it was picked. Giffnock’s two primaries and one secondary have 2,602 pupils between them.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Giffnock Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 389 | – |
| St Ninian's High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 2,006 | A+ |
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.
38% of workers worked mainly from home, higher than both East Renfrewshire’s towns (35%) and Scotland’s towns (31%). Giffnock counts 0.6 jobs per working resident. For a quarter of commuters, work was under 5 km away.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Private renters make up 5% of households, below East Renfrewshire’s towns (6%) and Scotland’s towns (13%) alike. Only one of the 10 towns in East Renfrewshire costs more to buy into than Giffnock, whose median sale is £345,700. Households that own their home make up 90%.
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.
20% of residents have a disability, near East Renfrewshire’s towns (20%) and lower than Scotland’s towns (24%). Self-reported good health: 84% of Giffnock’s residents. Life expectancy here is 85.2 for women and 81.4 for men (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | Giffnock | East Renfrewshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 84% | 83% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 4.9% | 5.3% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 20% | 20% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · 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.
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. Giffnock counts 10 listed buildings on the national list (Historic Environment Scotland): 6 Category B. For its size, Giffnock has 8 listed buildings per 10,000 residents.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
10 listed buildings in Giffnock.
4 Park Road/Fenwick Road, Orchard Park Hotel: Photo: WS212121 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Giffnock South Church of Scotland, Greenhill Avenue, Giffnock.: Photo: WS212121 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · "Eastwood Park" Rouken Glen Road, Giffnock: Photo: WS212121 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Rhuallan House, 1 Montgomery Drive, Giffnock: Photo: WS212121 · CC BY-SA 4.0
7 notable people were born in Giffnock.
Calum Gallagher: Runningboards, CC BY-SA 4.0 · David R. Ross: McMarcoP, Public domain · Daniel McGillivray Brown: Gait Michael J, CC BY-SA 4.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Giffnock | 11,963 | — | — | B+ | — | B+ |
| Thornliebank | 4,084 | 0.8 | — | A | — | C− |
| Netherlee | 4,493 | 0.8 | — | B+ | — | A+ |
| Stamperland | 3,497 | 1.1 | — | A | — | B+ |
| Clarkston | 9,486 | 1.2 | — | B+ | — | A+ |
| Busby | 3,351 | 1.8 | — | A | — | C |
| Newton Mearns | 28,447 | 2.3 | — | B+ | — | A− |
| Rutherglen | 31,185 | 3.5 | — | A+ | — | D− |
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 Giffnock is £1,620 for 2026–27, less than in 94% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
GCSE results beat 85% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). Giffnock has 3 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Town in East Renfrewshire, Scotland
Giffnock is a locality of 11,963 people, in the East Renfrewshire 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.