SmithtonHighland
A town of 2,905 in Highland, Scotland. Band D council tax is £1,634.
Is Smithton a good place to live?
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Smithton has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is hazard risk (A): 0% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea. Its weakest is health (D): life expectancy 78.2 for men, 81 for women. The median home sold for £199,000 in the last three years, 4.5 times what households in the Highland council area earn in a year.
What makes Smithton stand out
The 3 things Smithton does most differently from other towns.
How Smithton grades
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Smithton is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Smithton has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Inverness Cathedral and 13 more in and around Smithton
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Smithton. Best known first.
CathedralInverness Cathedral2.9 km outside town, to the west
Historic houseInverness Castle2.7 km outside town, to the west
MuseumInverness Museum & Art Gallery2.7 km outside town, to the west
CastleCastle Stuart4.6 km outside town, to the northeast
Museum · National Trust for ScotlandCulloden Battlefield Visitor Centre2.9 km outside town, to the east
Historic houseCulloden House800 m outside town, to the northeastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Photo credits (6)
- Inverness Cathedral: Lucas Kendall, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Inverness Castle: Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Inverness Museum & Art Gallery: John Allan, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Castle Stuart: User StaraBlazkova on cs.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Culloden Battlefield Visitor Centre: Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net)., CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Culloden House: Stanley Howe, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
The data
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Smithton.
Smithton is a renters’ town: 15% of households rent privately, more than in Highland’s towns and across Scotland’s towns
Households that own their home make up 56%. Private rents average £816 a month across the Highland and Islands council area. Behind the median of £199,000: 184 sales in Smithton’s data zones, 2023 to 2025.
Median sale price · 2023 to 2025, at early-2025 prices
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.
School results in Smithton are better than in 64% of Scottish towns
The one school in town appears below. 362 pupils attend Smithton’s one primary school.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smithton Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 362 | – |
Disability is less common in Smithton, 21% of residents, than in Highland’s towns and Scotland’s towns
Asked at the census, just over four in five residents of Smithton said they were in good or very good health. Men in Smithton can expect to live to 78.2, women to 81 (2020–24). At the census, 6.4% of people here described their health as bad or very bad.
| Census 2022 | Smithton | Highland | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 82% | 79% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 6.4% | 6.6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 21% | 24% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Because the census answers ignore age, a younger population lifts them; that is why the Health Grade is built on age-adjusted measures like life expectancy and early deaths.
Only 22% of commuters in Smithton go to work without a car, fewer than in Highland’s towns and across Scotland’s towns
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 26% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
About 3% of its commuters stay in Smithton for work. By car: that was how just over three quarters of commuters travelled at the census. 61% of commuters travelled under 5 km, lower than Highland’s towns (64%) yet higher than Scotland’s towns (44%). Among 16 to 64s, 2.3% claimed unemployment benefits in 2026.
How commuters got to work · March 2022
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
No listed buildings in Smithton
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
One scheduled monument lies in Smithton. Historic Environment Scotland’s list has no building inside the town’s locality.
Listed buildings by grade · Historic Environment Scotland
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Children make up 19% of Smithton, above Highland’s towns and Scotland’s towns
People aged 15 to 24 make up 11% of the town. 12% of residents are 65 or over, below Highland’s towns (21%) and Scotland’s towns (19%) alike. Half of Smithton is older than 35.1, half younger. Degrees are held by just over a quarter of adults.
Ages · share of residents
Qualifications · residents 16 and older
Women and men · all residents
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Smithton | Highland | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 19% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 33% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 23% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 12% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 15% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.5% | 8.7% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 26% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Highland and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Everything we know about Smithton
Smithton’s neighbours
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smithton | 2,905 | — | — | A | — | D |
| Westhill | 5,681 | 0.6 | — | A− | — | C |
| Culloden | 3,699 | 0.8 | — | A | — | C |
| Milton of Leys | 3,168 | 2.2 | — | A− | — | B+ |
| Inverness | 48,257 | 2.9 | — | A | — | D |
| Muir of Ord | 2,832 | 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.
Questions about Smithton
How much is council tax in Smithton?
Band D council tax in Smithton 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 Smithton expensive to live in?
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £199,000, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 172nd most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
About Smithton
Town in Highland, Scotland
Smithton is a locality of 2,905 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
- 2,905 (Census 2022)
- Council
- Highland
- Nation
- Scotland
- Area
- 0.7 sq mi (1.7 km²)
- NRS code
- S52000567
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.