Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 5,766 in Highland, Scotland. Band D council tax is £1,634.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Fort William has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is walkability (A+): 30% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Its weakest is health (D): life expectancy 73.7 for men, 80.3 for women. The median home sold for £175,100 in the last three years, 3.9 times what households in the Highland council area earn in a year.
The 3 things Fort William 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 Fort William is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Fort William has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 22 buildings inside Fort William’s locality, 2 of them in the top category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds 4 old photos and postcards going back to 1890.
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Fort William. Best known first.
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandInverlochy Castlein town
MuseumWest Highland Museumin town
FortFort William Old Fortin town
CastleTor Castle2.5 km outside town, to the northeastAttractionAttractionBen Nevis Distilleryin townMuseumMuseumLochaber Archivein 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 Fort William.
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.
Just over two thirds of commuters drove, below Highland’s towns (72%) and Scotland’s towns (70%) alike. Jobs per working resident: 1. Of the commuters living in Fort William, 41% work in the town itself.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Between them, two primaries teach 335 pupils in Fort William. Below is one of its 2 schools, and why it was picked.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lundavra Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 204 | – |
The private rented sector houses one in ten households. Half of households own their home, below both Highland’s towns (61%) and Scotland’s towns (60%). Private rents average £816 a month across the Highland and Islands council area.
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, 23% of people here had a disability, below both Highland’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). 6.8% of residents report bad or very bad health. Asked at the census, nearly four in five residents of Fort William said they were in good or very good health.
| Census 2022 | Fort William | Highland | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 79% | 79% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 6.8% | 6.6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 23% | 24% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · These answers aren’t adjusted for age, so young towns look healthier; the Health Grade uses age-adjusted measures, including 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 15 of them, Category A 2. For its size, Fort William has 38 listed buildings per 10,000 residents.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Children under 15 count for 14% of the people here. 18% of residents are 65 or over, lower than both Highland’s towns (21%) and Scotland’s towns (19%). Fort William has a median age of 41.
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Fort William | Highland | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 15% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 25% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 18% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 20% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9% | 8.7% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 24% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Highland and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
22 listed buildings in Fort William, 2 of them in the top category.
Belford Road, Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary and the Immaculate Conception and Enclosing Walls with Gate Piers.: Photo: Lucas Kendall · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Inverlochy Castle: Photo: Oehoe · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Fort William, fort: Photo: Nick R · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Nevis Bridge (New) over River Nevis: Photo: AllyD · CC BY-SA 4.0
11 notable people were born in Fort William.
Andrew Thomas McDonald: William Drummond Young, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ewen Henderson: Thesupermat, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Hugh Stewart Cochrane: not stated, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fort William | 5,766 | — | — | A | — | D |
| Caol | 3,200 | 1.5 | — | 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.
Band D council tax in Fort William 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 £175,100, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 135th 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
Fort William is a locality of 5,766 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.