Photo: Richard Webb · CC BY-SA 2.0How Dunfermline works: jobs, income and commuting
The journey to work is shorter than 3 miles for 44% of commuters. Every working day brings 11,028 commuters in, filling the town. There is no Jobs & income Grade for Dunfermline.
What the numbers say about work in Dunfermline
More jobs than the typical town
27,260 jobs are based in Dunfermline for 27,487 working residents; the typical UK town has 0.7 jobs per resident in work. Warehousing and logistics, hospitals and health care and shops make up 31% of them. Jobs based here ↓
The town fills up on a working day
11,028 people come in to work and 8,953 residents go out, so Dunfermline gains about 2,075 workers a day. Kirkcaldy and Dysart sends the most (1,096). The daily tide ↓
Written from the data on this page: Scotland’s Census 2022, ONS BRES and DWP claimant counts via Nomis.
27,260 jobs, one in six in health and social care
1 for every working resident; the typical UK town has 0.7.
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 (29,398). 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 Dunfermline (employees and working owners, ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024).
Every working day, Dunfermline’s workforce grows by 7%
27,487 residents were in work at the 2022 Census; 29,398 people worked in Dunfermline.
39% 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.
Dunfermline’s workers come from Kirkcaldy and Dysart to Edinburgh
- Countryside2,152
- Kirkcaldy and Dysart1,096
- Rosyth1,012
- Cowdenbeath and Lumphinnans839
- Edinburgh739
- Glenrothes564
- Dalgety Bay and Hillend423
- Kelty398
- Lochgelly336
- Inverkeithing293
- Edinburgh2,454
- Countryside968
- Rosyth834
- Kirkcaldy and Dysart803
- Glenrothes466
- Dalgety Bay and Hillend333
- Cowdenbeath and Lumphinnans308
- Livingston247
- Outside Scotland243
- Inverkeithing196
Kirkcaldy and Dysart, 11 miles away, sends 1,096 people, more than any other town; in all, 38% of the people who work in Dunfermline live outside it. Going the other way, Edinburgh is the biggest single destination (2,454).
The ten places that send the most workers into Dunfermline, and the ten where its residents most often work (Scotland’s Census 2022, by home and workplace). Line width is the number of people.
21% of Dunfermline’s commuters walk, cycle, or take the bus or train
Median journey 7.8 km; typical UK town 8.4 km.
Dunfermline 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).
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 Dunfermline’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).
What adults in Dunfermline do: 63% 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.
The work picture around Dunfermline
| Town | People | Jobs | Work in own town | Claimants | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dunfermline | 56,053 | 27,260 | 39% | 2.7% | — |
| Rosyth | 13,309 | 6,844 | 12% | 3.2% | — |
| Crossgates | 2,993 | 927 | 2% | 2.1% | — |
| Inverkeithing | 5,273 | 1,853 | 7% | 3.7% | — |
| Dalgety Bay and Hillend | 9,452 | 3,308 | 11% | 1.1% | — |
| Cairneyhill | 2,657 | 306 | 3% | 1.3% | — |
| Cowdenbeath and Lumphinnans | 11,979 | 3,844 | 14% | 4% | — |
| Kelty | 6,898 | 726 | 8% | 3.9% | — |
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. Dunfermline 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 Dunfermline’s locality, from small areas.
Questions about work in Dunfermline
Where do people in Dunfermline work?
At the 2022 Census, 39% of Dunfermline’s residents who travelled to work worked in the town itself; the most common other places were Edinburgh (2,454), Rosyth (834) and Kirkcaldy and Dysart (803). 46% of working residents worked mainly at home or had no fixed workplace.
How many people commute into Dunfermline?
11,028 people who lived elsewhere worked in Dunfermline at the 2022 Census, 38% of its 29,398 workers. The most came from Kirkcaldy and Dysart (1,096), Rosyth (1,012) and Cowdenbeath and Lumphinnans (839). 8,953 residents travelled out the other way.
How many jobs are there in Dunfermline?
About 27,250 jobs (employees and working owners) were based in Dunfermline in 2024, on ONS’s Business Register and Employment Survey: 1 for every resident in work, against 0.7 in the typical UK town. The biggest kinds of work are warehousing and logistics (about 3,030), hospitals and health care (about 3,030) and shops (about 2,860).
How do people in Dunfermline get to work?
77% of commuters go by car or van, 9% walk, 1% cycle and 12% take the bus or train; 44% travel under 5 km. Scotland’s Census 2022.
Why doesn’t Dunfermline 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.