Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 5,273 in Fife, Scotland.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Inverkeithing has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is walkability (A): 27% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Its weakest is health (D): life expectancy 77.8 for men, 80.4 for women. The median home sold for £164,700 in the last three years, 3.7 times what households in the Fife council area earn in a year.
The 3 things Inverkeithing 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 Inverkeithing is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Inverkeithing has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 47 buildings inside Inverkeithing’s locality, 5 of them in the top category.
The archive holds 2 old photos and postcards going back to 1903.
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Inverkeithing. Best known first.
MuseumInverkeithing Museumin town
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandDunfermline Palace & Abbey (ruins)4.8 km outside town, to the northwest
Historic houseHopetoun House4.6 km outside town, to the southwest
CastleRosyth Castle1.6 km outside town, to the west
AquariumDeep Sea World1.5 km outside town, to the south
CastleBarnbougle Castle4.9 km outside town, to the southeastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Inverkeithing.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 30% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Unemployment benefit claims came to 3.7% of 16 to 64s in 2026, higher than both Fife’s towns (3.4%) and Scotland’s towns (2.8%). A third of commuters travelled under 5 km to work. About 7% of its commuters stay in Inverkeithing for work. At the census, 70% of commuters went by car.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Some 1,958 pupils attend Inverkeithing’s one primary and one secondary. Below are its two schools.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inverkeithing Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 351 | – |
| Inverkeithing High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,607 | C |
Behind the median of £164,700: 322 sales in Inverkeithing’s data zones, 2023 to 2025. Private rents average £868 a month across the Fife council area. The private rented sector houses 13% of households.
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.
Asked at the census, 76% of residents of Inverkeithing said they were in good or very good health. Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects 7.9% of the town. At the census, just over a quarter of people here had a disability, about level with Fife’s towns (26%) and above Scotland’s towns (24%).
| Census 2022 | Inverkeithing | Fife | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 76% | 77% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.9% | 7.2% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 26% | 26% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Census health answers are raw, so younger towns score better on them; for the Health Grade we use age-adjusted figures like 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 16 of them, Category A 5. Inverkeithing’s listed buildings include Bank Street, Mercat Cross, Category A. Per 10,000 residents, Inverkeithing counts 89 listed buildings.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
18% of residents are 65 or over. Line up the people of Inverkeithing by age and the one in the middle is 42.3. Among adults, 26% have a degree.
50% women, 50% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Inverkeithing | Fife | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.9% | 13% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 28% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 18% | 20% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 18% | 17% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.8% | 8.2% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 12% | 11% |
| Degree level | 26% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Fife and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
47 listed buildings in Inverkeithing, 5 of them in the top category.
Queen Street, The Friary Including Well and Vaulted Cellars: Photo: Kim Traynor · CC BY 3.0 · Bank Street, Mercat Cross: Photo: Arcaist · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Church Street, Inverkeithing Parish Church (St Peter's Building; Church of Scotland) Including Churchyard and Boundary Walls: Photo: Kim Traynor · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Commercial Road, Bridge over Keithing Burn: Photo: Drnoble · CC BY-SA 3.0
8 notable people were born in Inverkeithing.
Natalie McGarry: Scottish National Party (SNP), CC BY 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inverkeithing | 5,273 | — | — | A | — | D |
| Rosyth | 13,309 | 1.2 | — | A | — | D |
| Dalgety Bay and Hillend | 9,452 | 1.5 | — | A− | — | B+ |
| Dunfermline | 56,053 | 3 | — | A | — | C− |
| South Queensferry | 10,214 | 3.2 | — | B− | — | B |
| Crossgates | 2,993 | 3.7 | — | A | — | C− |
| Kirkliston | 5,607 | 5.1 | — | B− | — | B− |
| Cowdenbeath and Lumphinnans | 11,979 | 5.6 | — | 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.
That is 3.7 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Bank Street, Mercat Cross.
Band D council tax in Inverkeithing 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £164,700, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 171st most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Inverkeithing has 2 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Town in Fife, Scotland
Inverkeithing is a locality of 5,273 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.