Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 6,905 in Highland, Scotland.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Wick 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 111th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £121,100, 2.7 years of area income; rent £816 a month. Its weakest is health (D): life expectancy 73.5 for men, 78.3 for women.
The 3 things Wick 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 Wick is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Wick has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 84 buildings inside Wick’s locality, 2 of them in the top category, and 3 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds 2 old photos and postcards going back to 1903.
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Wick.
Wick is the second cheapest of the 16 towns in Highland, at £121,100. Private renters make up 7% of households. 30% live in social housing, above both Highland’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%).
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.
Wick’s two primaries and one secondary have 1,292 pupils between them. Of its 3 schools, two are shown below, each with the reason.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noss primary schoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 297 | – |
| Wick High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 719 | C− |
26% of residents in Wick live with a disability. At the census, 77% of people in Wick called their health good or very good, below Highland’s towns (79%) and Scotland’s towns (78%) alike. Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects 7% of the town.
| Census 2022 | Wick | Highland | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 77% | 79% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7% | 6.6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 26% | 24% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · A young population flatters these answers, which are not age-adjusted; the Health Grade instead uses measures that allow for age, such as life expectancy and early deaths.
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.
Nearly a quarter of workers worked mainly from home, below both Highland’s towns (27%) and Scotland’s towns (31%). Work in town: 54% of resident commuters. There are 0.9 jobs in Wick for each resident in work.
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.
At the top of the list, 2 are Category A and 43 Category B. Of Wick’s 84 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list, Category A counts 2 and Category B 43. Conservation areas cover 3% of the town’s land, higher than Highland’s towns (0%) and near Scotland’s towns (1%).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Children under 15 make up 17%, above both Highland’s towns (16%) and Scotland’s towns (15%). The 15-to-24 age group makes up just over one in ten residents. At 43.9, the median resident of Wick sits in the middle of the age range. Over-65s are 22% of the population.
51% women, 49% men
About 95 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Wick | Highland | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 17% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 23% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 22% | 21% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 26% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 8.7% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 18% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Highland and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Wick. Best known first.
MuseumWick Heritage Centrein town
CastleAckergil Tower1.2 km outside town, to the north
Castle · National Trust for ScotlandCastle Sinclair Girnigoe1.8 km outside town, to the north
CastleCastle of Old Wick600 m outside town, to the southAttractionAttractionCaithness SeaCoast toursin townAttractionAttractionPulteney Distillery Visitor Centrein townPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
84 listed buildings in Wick, 2 of them in the top category.
19 - 27 (Odd) Bank Row (Wick Heritage Centre): Photo: Braveheart · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wick Railway Station: Photo: Sunil060902 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bridge Street, Town Hall: Photo: Gordon Hatton · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Market Place, High Street Post Office: Photo: Richard Webb · CC BY-SA 2.0
33 notable people were born in Wick.
Alexander Henry Rhind: Robert C Bell, Public domain · William John Macleay: J. Hubert, Public domain · Evan Oliphant: Paul Hornby, CC BY-SA 2.0 · John Gow: Geo. S. Harris and Sons / Allen & Ginter, CC0 · Charlotte McShane: MartinPutz, CC BY-SA 3.0
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £121,100, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 111th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
That is 5 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include High Street, Wick Old Parish Church Churchyard, Dunbar Memorial. It also has 3 scheduled monuments.
Wick has 3 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Band D council tax in Wick 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
Wick is a locality of 6,905 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
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.