Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 7,419 in Highland, Scotland.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Thurso 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 108th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £119,000, 2.7 years of area income; rent £816 a month. Its weakest is health (D): life expectancy 75.3 for men, 79.7 for women.
The 3 things Thurso 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 Thurso is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Thurso has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 88 buildings inside Thurso’s locality, 41 of them in the second category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Thurso.
In the comparison, Thurso comes below both Highland’s towns (11%) and Scotland’s towns (13%). Thurso is the cheapest of the 16 towns in Highland: its median sale is £119,000.
Registers of Scotland data-zone sale prices · Scottish Government council tax · Scotland’s Census 2022 tenure · OGL
Two of its 4 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miller Academy Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 267 | – |
| Thurso High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 708 | C+ |
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.
55% of commuters travelled under 5 km, below Highland’s towns (64%) but above Scotland’s towns (44%). 2.2% of 16 to 64s claimed unemployment benefits in 2026.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Women here live to 79.7 on average and men to 75.3 (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.
| Census 2022 | Thurso | Highland | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 78% | 79% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 6.6% | 6.6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 25% | 24% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
For Thurso, that is above both Highland’s towns (25) and Scotland’s towns (22). Thurso has 88 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 0 Category A, 41 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Thurso sits below both Highland’s towns (27%) and Scotland’s towns (32%) on this measure. People aged 15 to 24 make up 9.4% of the town. The median resident of Thurso is 45.9 years old.
50% women, 50% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Thurso | Highland | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.4% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 25% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 23% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 19% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 11% | 8.7% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 22% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Highland and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
88 listed buildings in Thurso.
Thurso, St Peter's Church and Burial Ground: Photo: Roger Wollstadt from Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Scrabster Castle: Photo: Phil Williams · CC BY-SA 2.0 · High Street, Thurso Heritage Museum (Former Carnegie Library): Photo: Mainlymazza · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Manson's Lane the Meadow Well House: Photo: Mainlymazza · CC BY-SA 4.0
20 notable people were born in Thurso.
Bryan Gunn: Dweller at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Arthur St. Clair: Charles Willson Peale, Public domain · William David Ross: Writersfinger, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gary Mackay-Steven: Ailura, CC BY-SA 3.0 at · Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet: Henry Raeburn, Public domain · Andrew Geddes Bain: The original uploader was Paul venter at English Wikipedia., Public domain
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £119,000, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 108th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
That is 4.9 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. It also has 2 scheduled monuments.
Band D council tax in Thurso 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
Thurso is a locality of 7,419 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.