Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 16,465 in Fife, Scotland.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so St Andrews has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is walkability (A+): 40% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Its weakest is hazard risk (C−): 2.9% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea. The median home sold for £423,700 in the last three years, 9.6 times what households in the Fife council area earn in a year.
The 3 things St Andrews 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 St Andrews is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so St Andrews has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 370 buildings inside St Andrews’s locality, 20 of them in the top category, and 4 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds a map from c. 1720.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near St Andrews. Best known first.
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandSt Andrews Castlein town
MuseumR&A World Golf Museumin town
MuseumSt Andrews Museumin town
GardenSt Andrews Botanic Gardenin town
MuseumWardlaw Museumin town
MuseumBell Pettigrew Museumin townPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in St Andrews.
The age that splits St Andrews in two is 23.9. People aged 15 to 24 make up just over half of the town, above both Fife’s towns (13%) and Scotland’s towns (12%). 17% of residents are 65 or over.
56% women, 44% men
About 79 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women. A large institution, such as a prison, barracks, boarding school, university or care home, can tilt a town’s split: the census counts the people living there as residents.
| St Andrews | Fife | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 6% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 51% | 13% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 13% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 13% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 17% | 20% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 6.2% | 17% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 2.6% | 8.2% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 33% | 12% | 11% |
| Degree level | 37% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Fife and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Of its 4 schools, two are shown below, each with the reason. St Andrews’s three primaries and one secondary have 2,077 pupils between them.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lawhead Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 213 | – |
| Madras CollegeLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,497 | B+ |
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 34% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Of the commuters living in St Andrews, 56% work in the town itself. For every resident in work, St Andrews has 2.7 jobs. The car took 57% of commuters, below both Fife’s towns (78%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). 63% of commuters travelled under 5 km to work.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Private renters make up 32% of households, higher than both Fife’s towns (12%) and Scotland’s towns (13%). No town in Fife costs more to buy into than St Andrews, at £423,700, the highest of 26. 15% of households live in social housing.
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.
At the census, 86% of people in St Andrews called their health good or very good, higher than both Fife’s towns (77%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). Nearly a fifth of residents in St Andrews live with a disability. Life expectancy here is 84.6 for women and 77.1 for men (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | St Andrews | Fife | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 86% | 77% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 3.4% | 7.2% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 19% | 26% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · No age adjustment applies to these census answers, which flatter younger towns; the Health Grade’s measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them, do allow for age.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Of St Andrews’ land, 31% lies in conservation areas, higher than both Fife’s towns (0%) and Scotland’s towns (1%). Per 10,000 residents, St Andrews counts 225 listed buildings. At the top of the list, 20 are Category A and 164 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
370 listed buildings in St Andrews, 20 of them in the top category.
Madras College Main Building: Photo: Kim Traynor · CC BY-SA 3.0 · St. Salvator's Chapel, Tower and Hebdomadar's Building.: Photo: Andy Hawkins · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Warehouse Within Court at Rear of 203 South Street: Photo: Peafowl12 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Castlemount, North Castle Street: Photo: Drkirstyross · CC BY-SA 3.0
98 notable people were born in St Andrews.
Old Tom Morris: Thomas Rodger, Public domain · Jane Fraser: LowneyJen, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Young Tom Morris: James Hardie, Public domain · Alexander Wilson: Unknown artist, Public domain · Tom Brewster: Bob Cowan, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Jo Grimond: Abbie Rowe. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, Public domain
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Andrews | 16,465 | — | — | C | — | C+ |
| Cupar | 8,835 | 8.2 | — | A | — | C− |
| Tayport | 3,967 | 8.2 | — | A | — | C− |
| Anstruther | 3,943 | 8.7 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Newport-on-Tay and Wormit | 4,119 | 8.9 | — | B | — | B |
| Monifieth | 9,356 | 10 | — | B+ | — | C+ |
| Dundee | 147,365 | 11 | — | B+ | — | D− |
| Carnoustie | 11,373 | 12 | — | A | — | C |
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 9.2 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include All Saint's Episcopal Church and Ancillary Buildings, North Castle Street.. It also has 4 scheduled monuments.
Band D council tax in St Andrews 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.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in Fife, Scotland
St Andrews is a locality of 16,465 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.