Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 3,699 in Highland, Scotland. Band D council tax is £1,634.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Culloden has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is cost of living (A): the 129th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £169,200, 3.8 years of area income; rent £816 a month. Its weakest is health (C): life expectancy 76.8 for men, 83.5 for women.
The 3 things Culloden 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 Culloden is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Culloden has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 6 buildings inside Culloden’s locality, 2 of them in the top category.
The archive holds 1 old photo or postcard going back to 1903.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Culloden. Best known first.
Historic houseCulloden Housein town
CathedralInverness Cathedral5 km outside town, to the west
Historic houseInverness Castle4.7 km outside town, to the west
CastleCastle Stuart3.4 km outside town, to the northeast
MuseumInverness Museum & Art Gallery4.7 km outside town, to the west
Museum · National Trust for ScotlandCulloden Battlefield Visitor Centre2.1 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 Culloden.
Social housing holds 7% of households, lower than both Highland’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). 14% of households rent privately. 212 sales in Culloden’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £169,200.
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.
Below are its two schools. Culloden’s one primary and one secondary have 1,368 pupils between them.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duncan Forbes Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 265 | – |
| Culloden AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,103 | B− |
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 28% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
At the census, 19% went to work on foot, by bike or by public transport, lower than both Highland’s towns (25%) and Scotland’s towns (27%). Of the commuters living in Culloden, 4% work in the town itself. Jobs per working resident: 0.4.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Just over a fifth of residents have a disability, lower than both Highland’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Self-reported good health: just over four fifths of Culloden’s residents.
| Census 2022 | Culloden | Highland | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 82% | 79% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 5.1% | 6.6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 22% | 24% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · A young population flatters these answers, which are not age-adjusted; the Health Grade instead uses measures that allow for age, such as 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.
Culloden’s listed buildings include Culloden House Stables and Yard Wall, Category A. Scaled to its population, that is 16 listed buildings for every 10,000 people in the town. One garden or designed landscape lies here.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Half of Culloden is older than 44.8, half younger. People aged 15 to 24 make up 10% of the town, close to Highland’s towns (10%) and below Scotland’s towns (12%). Degrees are held by 28% of adults.
51% women, 49% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Culloden | Highland | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 10% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 24% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 30% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 20% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 15% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.3% | 8.7% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 28% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Highland and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
6 listed buildings in Culloden, 2 of them in the top category.
Culloden House, Gate Piers and Gardeners' Bothy.: Photo: Stanley Howe · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Culloden House Stables and Yard Wall: Photo: Ted and Jen from Birmingham, England · CC BY 2.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Culloden | 3,699 | — | — | A | — | C |
| Smithton | 2,905 | 0.8 | — | A | — | D |
| Westhill | 5,681 | 1.3 | — | A− | — | C |
| Milton of Leys | 3,168 | 3 | — | A− | — | B+ |
| Inverness | 48,257 | 3.6 | — | A | — | D |
| Nairn | 9,576 | 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.
Band D council tax in Culloden 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £169,200, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 129th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in Highland, Scotland
Culloden is a locality of 3,699 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.