Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
49% of households own their home with no mortgage. The town, home to 9,452 people, lies in Fife, Scotland.
Dalgety Bay and Hillend’s strongest subject is cost of living: homes sell for a median £221,800, about 5 times local household income. Health is a strength: men here can expect to live to 82.5, women to 86. Schools are its weak spot: school leavers’ results beat 28% of Scottish towns. Council tax at Band D comes to £1,574.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Dalgety Bay and Hillend has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Dalgety Bay and Hillend 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 Dalgety Bay and Hillend is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Dalgety Bay and Hillend has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 7 buildings inside Dalgety Bay and Hillend’s locality, 2 of them in the top category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Dalgety Bay and Hillend. Best known first.
CastleAberdour Castle2.7 km outside town, to the northeast
Abbey or prioryInchcolm Abbey2.3 km outside town, to the east
AquariumDeep Sea World2.5 km outside town, to the southwest
CastleRosyth Castle3.5 km outside town, to the west
CastleBarnbougle Castle4 km outside town, to the south
CastleCouston Castle500 m outside town, to the northeastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Dalgety Bay and Hillend.
Private renters make up nearly one in ten households, below both Fife’s towns (12%) and Scotland’s towns (13%). The social rented sector houses 2% of households. Behind the median of £221,800: 538 sales in Dalgety Bay and Hillend’s data zones, 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.
Some 567 pupils attend Dalgety Bay and Hillend’s two primaries. Of its 2 schools, one is shown below, with the reason.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Donibristle Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 325 | – |
84% of people in Dalgety Bay and Hillend rate their own health good or very good. At the census, a fifth of people here had a disability, lower than both Fife’s towns (26%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects 4.6% of the town.
| Census 2022 | Dalgety Bay and Hillend | Fife | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 84% | 77% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 4.6% | 7.2% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 20% | 26% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · These shares come straight from the census, without allowing for age, and young towns benefit; the Health Grade instead weighs age-adjusted measures, including life expectancy and early deaths.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 39% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
For every resident in work, Dalgety Bay and Hillend has 0.8 jobs. Of the commuters living locally, 11% work in the town itself. 39% of workers worked mainly from home, above both Fife’s towns (30%) and Scotland’s towns (31%).
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.
Dalgety Bay and Hillend’s listed buildings include Donibristle Chapel, Category A. One garden or designed landscape lies locally.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
40% of adults hold a degree, above both Fife’s towns (27%) and Scotland’s towns (32%). Retirement age and beyond: 27% of residents are 65 or older. Line up the people of Dalgety Bay and Hillend by age and the one in the middle is 50.4. Children are 14% of the town.
52% women, 48% men
About 94 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.
| Dalgety Bay and Hillend | Fife | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.2% | 13% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 20% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 31% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 27% | 20% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 9.5% | 17% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7% | 8.2% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 12% | 11% |
| Degree level | 40% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Fife and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
7 listed buildings in Dalgety Bay and Hillend, 2 of them in the top category.
Donibristle House: Photo: Simon Johnston · CC BY-SA 2.0 · St Bridget's Kirk: Photo: Dkardokas · CC BY-SA 3.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dalgety Bay and Hillend | 9,452 | — | — | A− | — | B+ |
| Inverkeithing | 5,273 | 1.5 | — | A | — | D |
| Rosyth | 13,309 | 2.6 | — | A | — | D |
| Crossgates | 2,993 | 3.4 | — | A | — | C− |
| Dunfermline | 56,053 | 3.7 | — | A | — | C− |
| South Queensferry | 10,214 | 3.8 | — | B− | — | B |
| Burntisland | 6,259 | 5.1 | — | A | — | D |
| Cowdenbeath and Lumphinnans | 11,979 | 5.1 | — | 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.
Band D council tax in Dalgety Bay and Hillend is £1,574 for 2026–27, less than in 97% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Dalgety Bay and Hillend has 2 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £221,800, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 232nd most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in Fife, Scotland
Dalgety Bay and Hillend is a locality of 9,452 people, in the Fife 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.
