Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Inverness has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is walkability (A): 29% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Its weakest is health (D): life expectancy 76.7 for men, 81.2 for women. The median home sold for £197,800 in the last three years, 4.4 times what households in the Highland council area earn in a year.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Inverness is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Inverness has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Inverness.
Work & commute
Work is close at hand in Inverness: 78% of commuters travel under 5 km, more than in Highland’s towns or Scotland’s towns
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.
On this, Inverness is above both Highland’s towns (64%) and Scotland’s towns (44%). 68% of commuters drove to work at the census.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
SchoolsC
Results at Inverness’s schools trail 68% of Scottish towns
Two of its 22 schools are below, each with why it’s listed. The grade uses the secondaries its children go to; Scotland publishes no primary results by school.
Registers of Scotland data-zone sale prices · Scottish Government council tax · Scotland’s Census 2022 tenure · OGL
Health
Life expectancy in Inverness is shorter than in 87% of UK towns
Women here live to 81.2 on average and men to 76.7 (2020–24). 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.
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL
History
299 listed buildings, 14 of them in the top category
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Inverness has 299 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 14 Category A, 193 Category B. Inverness has 62 listed buildings for every 10,000 residents. Inverness’s listed buildings include Church Street, Old High Church, Category A.
299listed buildings
Listed buildings by grade · Historic Environment Scotland
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Who lives here
A typical mix of ages for Scotland
9.9% of residents are 15 to 24 and 20% are 65 or over, against 10% and 21% across Highland’s towns. 31% of residents 16 and over have a degree-level qualification (Highland 27%, Scotland 32%).
43median age
InvernessHighlandScotland
Ages · share of residents
20%
Under 1515–2425–4445–6465+
Qualifications · residents 16 and older
No qualifications17%
Apprenticeship8%
Highers or similar11%
Degree level31%
Women and men · all residents
51% women, 49% men
WomenScotlandMen
About 94 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
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Inverness’s neighbours
The nearest towns and villages, from National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities. See them on the map →
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.
Questions about Inverness
How many listed buildings are there in Inverness?
That is 2.5 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Church Street, Old High Church. It also has 8 scheduled monuments.
How much is council tax in Inverness?
Band D council tax in Inverness 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.
Is Inverness expensive to live in?
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £197,800, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 170th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
About Inverness
Large town in Highland, Scotland
Inverness is a locality of 48,257 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
Population
48,257 (Census 2022)
Council
Highland
Nation
Scotland
Area
9.3 sq mi (24.1 km²)
NRS code
S52000334
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.
