Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A large town of 42,870 in Inverclyde, Scotland.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Greenock 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 152nd most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £96,700, 2.3 years of area income; rent £768 a month. Its weakest is health (D−): life expectancy 73.5 for men, 78.2 for women.
The 3 things Greenock 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 Greenock is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Greenock has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 112 buildings inside Greenock’s locality, 15 of them in the top category, and 1 scheduled monument.
The archive holds 5 old photos and postcards going back to 1865 and a map from c. 1881.
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Greenock.
At the census, 72% of people in Greenock called their health good or very good, below both Inverclyde’s towns (74%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). Of the 5 towns in Inverclyde, Greenock has the second-largest share in bad or very bad health: 11%. Disability touches 31% of the town’s population.
| Census 2022 | Greenock | Inverclyde | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 72% | 74% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 11% | 9.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 31% | 30% | 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.
Below are two of its 13 schools, each with why it was picked. Some 4,180 pupils attend Greenock’s ten primaries and two secondaries.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ardgowan Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 407 | – |
| Notre Dame High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 897 | B |
Nearly a third of households live in social housing. Only one of the 5 towns in Inverclyde costs less to buy into than Greenock, whose median sale is £96,700. Owners make up 55% of households.
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.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 30% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
56% of commuters travelled under 5 km to work. Work in town: 52% of resident commuters. Jobs per working resident: 0.9. At the census, 24% went to work on foot, by bike or by public transport, between Inverclyde’s towns (22%) and Scotland’s towns (27%).
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, 15 are Category A and 66 Category B. Greenock’s listed buildings include Custom House, Custom House Place, Category A. Conservation areas cover a tenth of the town’s land, below Inverclyde’s towns (14%) but above Scotland’s towns (1%).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
At 45.5, the median resident of Greenock sits in the middle of the age range. Young adults of 15 to 24 are 11% of the population.
52% women, 48% men
About 92 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Greenock | Inverclyde | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 14% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 24% | 23% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 30% | 30% | 27% |
| 65+ | 21% | 22% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 23% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.8% | 8.8% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 20% | 24% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Inverclyde and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Greenock. Best known first.
MuseumMcLean Museum and Art Galleryin town
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandNewark Castle1.7 km outside town, to the east
CastleCastle Levan1.4 km outside town, to the west
CastleArdgowan Castle3.2 km outside town, to the southwest
Museum · National Trust for ScotlandGeilston Garden4.1 km outside town, to the eastMuseumMuseumScottish Fire and Rescue Service Museum and Heritage Centrein townPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
112 listed buildings in Greenock, 15 of them in the top category.
Watt Institution including Watt Library and McLean Museum and Art Gallery, 15 Kelly Street, Greenock: Photo: Hajotthu · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Municipal Buildings, Clyde Square ( Wallace Place/Dalrymple Street): Photo: Thomas Nugent · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Greenock, James Watt Dock, Titan Cantilever Crane: Photo: Lynn M Reid · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Eldon Street, Former Torpedo Works at Fort Matilda Industrial Estate: Photo: dave souza · CC BY-SA 4.0
223 notable people were born in Greenock.
James Watt: Henry Howard, Public domain · Richard Wilson: S Pakhrin, CC BY 2.0 · Greg Taylor: Анна Джалалян, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Martin Compston: Soccer Aid for Unicef, CC BY 3.0 · Edward Caird: Thomas Annan (1829-1887), 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greenock | 42,870 | — | — | A | — | D− |
| Gourock | 10,072 | 2.1 | — | A | — | C |
| Port Glasgow | 14,260 | 4.2 | — | A | — | D− |
| Inverkip | 3,542 | 4.4 | — | B | — | B |
| Helensburgh | 14,128 | 4.6 | — | B | — | C+ |
| Dunoon | 7,982 | 5.9 | — | A− | — | D |
| Kilmacolm | 3,876 | 6.6 | — | B | — | B |
| Alexandria | 6,260 | 8.1 | — | 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £96,700, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 152nd most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Band D council tax in Greenock is £1,674 for 2026–27, less than in 92% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Large town in Inverclyde, Scotland
Greenock is a locality of 42,870 people, in the Inverclyde 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.