Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 2,841 in Highland, Scotland. Band D council tax is £1,634.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Aviemore has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is walkability (A): 28% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. The median home sold for £241,600 in the last three years, 5.4 times what households in the Highland council area earn in a year.
No state school with published KS2 or GCSE results is in or within 3 km of this town, so it has no School Grade.
The thing Aviemore 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 Aviemore is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Aviemore has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 7 buildings inside Aviemore’s locality, 1 of them in the top category, and 1 scheduled monument.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Aviemore.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 27% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
About 47% of its commuters stay in Aviemore for work. 58% of commuters travelled under 5 km, lower than Highland’s towns (64%) yet higher than Scotland’s towns (44%). At the census, 68% of commuters went by car.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
The town has one school, shown below. Its one primary school teaches 199 pupils.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aviemore Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 199 | – |
Owners make up 56% of households, lower than both Highland’s towns (61%) and Scotland’s towns (60%). No town in Highland costs more to buy into than Aviemore, at £241,600, the highest of 16. Private renters make up 14% 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.
Women here live to 88.6 on average and men to 81.1 (2020–24). At the census, 20% of people here had a disability, lower than both Highland’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Asked at the census, 83% of residents of Aviemore said they were in good or very good health.
| Census 2022 | Aviemore | Highland | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 83% | 79% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 4.8% | 6.6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 20% | 24% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Read these answers with age in mind: they aren’t adjusted, so younger places do better. The Health Grade uses age-adjusted measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
The national list protects one ancient monument in Aviemore. Listed buildings per head: 25 for every 10,000 residents of the town.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
The under-15s are 14% of the population here. Typical age in Aviemore: 46.4, the median. Among adults, 30% have a degree.
51% women, 49% men
About 94 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Aviemore | Highland | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 25% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 31% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 20% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 16% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.2% | 8.7% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 30% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Highland and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Aviemore. Best known first.
7 listed buildings in Aviemore, 1 of them in the top category.
Aviemore, Grampian Road, Cairngorm Hotel: Photo: Victuallers · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Locomotive Shed and Offices, Strathspey Railway, Aviemore: Photo: Tom Parnell · CC BY-SA 4.0
5 notable people were born in Aviemore.
Duncan Grant: Lady Ottoline Morrell, Public domain · Aggie MacKenzie: Rammikins!, CC BY-SA 2.0
Band D council tax in Aviemore is £1,634 for 2026–27, less than in 93% 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £241,600, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 225th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in Highland, Scotland
Aviemore is a locality of 2,841 people, in the Highland 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.