Photo: Oliver Dixon · CC BY-SA 2.0More people claim jobless benefits in Buckhaven than in 99% of UK towns
On a working day 894 residents travel out to work and 631 people come in. Jobless benefits go to 6.2% of working-age residents, where the typical UK town’s rate is 2.7%. The Jobs & income Grade leaves out Buckhaven.
Where Buckhaven stands out on work
Fewer jobs than working residents
1,121 jobs are based in Buckhaven for 1,675 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Education, social work and home care and hospitals and health care make up 61% of them. Jobs based here ↓
More benefit claims than most towns
The typical UK town: 2.7%; Scotland: 3.1% so far in 2026. Benefits over time ↓
Written from the data on this page: Scotland’s Census 2022, ONS BRES and DWP claimant counts via Nomis.
Jobless claims in the Fife council area are about Scotland’s rate
Fife’s rate was about 3.8% in 2019, peaked at 6.9% in August 2020 and has averaged 3.2% in 2026, against 3.1% across Scotland and 4% across England and Wales. Claims everywhere stay higher than before the pandemic, partly because Universal Credit counts more people on low pay as looking for work.
The chart is the whole council area of Fife, which Nomis publishes monthly; the figures above the line are for Buckhaven’s locality. Claimant count: people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, or Universal Credit while required to look for work. Employment and income deprivation are from the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020 (benefit records from 2017 to 2019, so before the pandemic and older than the claimant figures): its 2011 data zones are shared out to the town by where their residents live. The “most deprived tenth” compares areas within Scotland only.
Claimant rate since 2015: people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance or Universal Credit while looking for work, as a share of residents aged 16 to 64 (DWP, via Nomis).
Each working day, more people leave Buckhaven for work than come in
1,675 residents were in work at the 2022 Census; 1,401 people worked in Buckhaven.
7% of residents who travel to a workplace stay in the town; in the typical UK town of 2,500+ it’s 14%.
The middle of each bar is the same people: residents who work in the town or from home.
Buckhaven’s commuters work from Kirkcaldy and Dysart to Dunfermline
- Countryside134
- Methil104
- Kirkcaldy and Dysart84
- Glenrothes78
- Leven76
- Kennoway35
- Dunfermline29
- Cupar14
- Anstruther11
- Rosyth6
- Kirkcaldy and Dysart169
- Leven150
- Methil137
- Glenrothes115
- Countryside105
- Dunfermline45
- Edinburgh22
- Cupar20
- St Andrews19
- Kennoway15
93% of residents who travel to a workplace work outside Buckhaven; Kirkcaldy and Dysart takes the most (169). Coming the other way, Methil sends the most (104).
The ten places that send the most workers into Buckhaven, and the ten where its residents most often work (Scotland’s Census 2022, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
1,121 jobs, 36% in education
0.7 for every working resident, the same as the typical UK town.
BRES counts jobs, not people (a part-time job and a second job count once each), so it runs above the Census count of people working here (1,401). Data zones and intermediate zones are shared out to the town by where their residents live (Scotland’s Census 2022 has no workplace counts for areas small enough to place jobs more exactly); kinds of work are BRES industry divisions (SIC 2007), rounded. Scotland’s towns: all jobs in its towns.
Jobs at workplaces in Buckhaven (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
19% of commuters in Buckhaven go on foot, by bike or by public transport
Median journey 6.7 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
44% of journeys to work are under 5 km (3 miles), against 44% across Scotland’s towns, and 8% are 30 km or more. Buckhaven grades A− for walkability: the share of commuters who walk, cycle or take public transport, against UK towns.
Scotland’s Census 2022, UV701 (method of travel) and UV703 (distance, straight line from home to workplace), output areas summed. Census day was 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census, so compare with Scotland’s towns rather than England’s.
How residents who travel to work get there, and how far they go (Scotland’s Census 2022, not counting those working mainly at home).
What adults in Buckhaven do: 48% are in work
Scotland’s Census 2022, tables UV601 (economic activity) and UV606 (occupation), output areas summed to the locality. Scotland’s towns: everyone living in its towns.
Everyone 16 and over, by what they were doing the week before the 2022 Census, and the jobs of those in work.
Work next door to Buckhaven
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buckhaven | 4,413 | 1,121 | 7% | 6.2% | — |
| Methil | 10,712 | 2,384 | 13% | 5.9% | — |
| Leven | 10,088 | 3,625 | 21% | 3.6% | — |
| Kennoway | 4,665 | 475 | 5% | 4.5% | — |
| Glenrothes | 37,466 | 21,553 | 42% | 3.4% | — |
| Kirkcaldy and Dysart | 51,135 | 23,357 | 45% | 5% | — |
| Leslie | 2,888 | 604 | 5% | 4.7% | — |
| Cardenden and Auchterderran | 5,266 | 959 | 6% | 4.2% | — |
Jobs based in each place, commuters who stay in their own town, and the claimant rate.
What this data can and can’t tell you
- The Census was a year later in Scotland. Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census, so more people were back at their workplaces. Commuting figures compare fairly with Scotland’s other towns, less so with England’s.
- Flows are by data zone. National Records of Scotland publishes where people live and work by data zone (about 800 residents), not by the smaller output areas England and Wales use. A zone that straddles a town’s edge is shared out by where its residents live, so the flows here are close, not exact.
- At home and no fixed place are one figure. NRS puts people who mainly work at home and people with no fixed workplace (drivers, builders, care workers on rounds) at their home address, so the two are counted together.
- Towns are localities. Buckhaven here is NRS’s Census 2022 locality: the town as built, not its council area. A workplace outside every town counts as “outside any town”.
- Jobs are counted where they are. BRES counts jobs at each workplace (employees and working owners, rounded by ONS), so a town with a hospital, university or big employer can have more jobs than working residents. Data zones are shared out to towns by where their residents live.
- The benefits chart is the council area. Nomis publishes the claimant count monthly for councils back to 2013, so the line is Fife as a whole; the claimant rate elsewhere on this page is Buckhaven’s locality, from small areas.
Questions about work in Buckhaven
Where do people in Buckhaven work?
At the 2022 Census, 7% of Buckhaven’s residents who travelled to work worked in the town itself; the most common other places were Kirkcaldy and Dysart (169), Leven (150) and Methil (137). 42% of working residents worked mainly at home or had no fixed workplace.
How many people commute into Buckhaven?
631 people who lived elsewhere worked in Buckhaven at the 2022 Census, 45% of its 1,401 workers. The most came from Methil (104), Kirkcaldy and Dysart (84) and Glenrothes (78). 894 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Buckhaven?
About 1,120 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Buckhaven in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 0.7 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are education (about 360), social work and home care (about 140) and hospitals and health care (about 110).
How do people in Buckhaven get to work?
79% of commuters go by car or van, 8% walk, 1% cycle and 10% take the bus or train; 44% travel under 5 km. Scotland’s Census 2022.
Why doesn’t Buckhaven have a Jobs & income Grade?
The grade needs three of four measures: household income, the claimant rate, employment deprivation and access to jobs. Scotland publishes household income only for council areas, its deprivation index (SIMD 2020) uses benefit records from before the pandemic rather than England’s 2025 index, and the job-access measure covers England and Wales only, so Scottish towns have the claimant rate alone.
Sources: NRS, Scotland’s Census 2022 origin-destination Table 5a (location of usual residence and place of work, 2022 data zones), shared to the Census 2022 locality · Scotland’s Census 2022 tables UV601 (economic activity), UV606 (occupation), UV701 (method of travel) and UV703 (distance) · ONS Business Register and Employment Survey via Nomis (open access), 2022 data zones and intermediate zones, by industry division · DWP claimant count via Nomis (towns January to August 2026; councils, Scotland and England and Wales monthly since January 2015) · Scottish Government, Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2020v2, indicators and domain deciles · 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.