Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 3,544 in Highland, Scotland.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Tain 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 117th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £146,000, 3.3 years of area income; rent £816 a month. Its weakest is health (D): life expectancy 75.1 for men, 81.4 for women.
The 3 things Tain 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 Tain is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Tain has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 87 buildings inside Tain’s locality, 2 of them in the top category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Tain.
For Tain, that is below both Highland’s towns (£187K) and Scotland’s towns (£174K). Private renters make up 10% of households.
Registers of Scotland data-zone sale prices · Scottish Government council tax · Scotland’s Census 2022 tenure · OGL
Two of its 3 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.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tain Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | – | – |
| Tain Royal AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 492 | C+ |
Women here live to 81.4 on average and men to 75.1 (2020–24). At the census, 29% of people here had a disability, above both Highland’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Tain’s share in bad or very bad health, 8.2%, is the second highest of the 16 towns in Highland.
| Census 2022 | Tain | Highland | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 75% | 79% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 8.2% | 6.6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 29% | 24% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 24% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
47% of commuters travelled under 5 km, below Highland’s towns (64%) and close to Scotland’s towns (44%). 24% of workers worked mainly from home at the census.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Tain sits above both Highland’s towns (25) and Scotland’s towns (22) on this measure. Tain has 87 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 2 Category A, 46 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
That puts Tain above both Highland’s towns (16%) and Scotland’s towns (15%). Those 65 and older account for 24% of residents. Tain has a median age of 44.8.
52% women, 48% men
About 92 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Tain | Highland | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 18% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.5% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 26% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 24% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 20% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 8.7% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 23% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Highland and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
87 listed buildings in Tain, 2 of them in the top category.
St Duthus Collegiate Church, boundary wall, excluding scheduled monument SM2803, Castle Brae, Tain: Photo: Anne Burgess · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Station Road Railway Station: Photo: John Lucas · CC BY-SA 2.0 · High Street District Council Offices: Photo: Victuallers · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Scotsburn Road, Mansfield Hotel: Photo: John Lucas · CC BY-SA 2.0
8 notable people were born in Tain.
Alexander Taylor Innes: Stephencdickson, CC BY-SA 4.0 · James Thomson: UnknownUnknown (Possibly from William Notman & Son.), 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tain | 3,544 | — | — | A+ | — | D |
| Invergordon | 3,801 | 9.2 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Alness | 5,940 | 10 | — | 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.
That is 10.1 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. It also has 2 scheduled monuments.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £146,000, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 117th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Band D council tax in Tain 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.
Town in Highland, Scotland
Tain is a locality of 3,544 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.