Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
3,542 residents make their home in this town in Inverclyde, Scotland. Band D council tax is £1,674.
Health outcomes beat most towns: life expectancy 81.5 for men, 84.4 for women. School results trail most towns (D): school leavers’ results beat 7% of Scottish towns. At a median £248,000, a home costs 6 times the yearly income of households in the Inverclyde council area. It also trails on walkability — 8% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport.
Figures: life expectancy and incomes, ONS · commuting, Census 2022 · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Inverkip without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Inverkip 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 Inverkip is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Inverkip without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 5 buildings inside Inverkip’s locality, 4 of them in the second category, and 1 scheduled monument.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Inverkip.
The town has one school, shown below.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inverkip Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 192 | – |
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 37% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
About 3% of its commuters stay in Inverkip for work. Jobs per working resident: 0.4. The car took 87% of commuters, above both Inverclyde’s towns (75%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). The census counted 37% of workers working mainly from home.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
17% of residents in Inverkip live with a disability. Of the 5 towns in Inverclyde, Inverkip has the smallest share in bad or very bad health: 3.9%. Men in Inverkip can expect to live to 81.5, women to 84.4 (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | Inverkip | Inverclyde | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 87% | 74% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 3.9% | 9.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 17% | 30% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · These shares come straight from the census, without allowing for age, and young towns benefit; the Health Grade instead weighs age-adjusted measures, including life expectancy and early deaths.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Historic Environment Scotland’s list names 5 listed buildings in Inverkip: 4 Category B. Only one town in Inverclyde has fewer listed buildings for its size than Inverkip. The national list protects one ancient monument in the town.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Renting privately is how 7% of households live. 2% live in social housing, below Inverclyde’s towns (26%) and Scotland’s towns (24%) alike. No town in Inverclyde costs more to buy into than Inverkip, at £248,000, the highest of 5.
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.
The 15-to-24 age group makes up one in ten residents. People 65 and over make up 17% of the town, lower than both Inverclyde’s towns (22%) and Scotland’s towns (19%). The middle age in Inverkip is 46.1.
52% women, 48% men
About 94 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Inverkip | Inverclyde | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 17% | 14% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 10% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 23% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 35% | 30% | 27% |
| 65+ | 17% | 22% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 7.6% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.2% | 8.8% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 38% | 24% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Inverclyde and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Inverkip. Best known first.
CastleArdgowan Castle300 m outside town, to the northwest
CastleCastle Levan3.6 km outside town, to the north
PierDunoon Pier4.7 km outside town, to the northwest
MuseumCastle House Museum Dunoon4.7 km outside town, to the northwestPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inverkip | 3,542 | — | — | B | — | B |
| Gourock | 10,072 | 3.5 | — | A | — | C |
| Dunoon | 7,982 | 4.1 | — | A− | — | D |
| Greenock | 42,870 | 4.4 | — | A | — | D− |
| Largs | 10,916 | 7.6 | — | A+ | — | C |
| Port Glasgow | 14,260 | 7.7 | — | A | — | D− |
| Rothesay | 4,206 | 8.8 | — | A− | — | D |
| Helensburgh | 14,128 | 8.8 | — | B | — | 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.
One state school is inside the town; places are handled by the local council.
Band D council tax in Inverkip 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £248,000, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 277th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in Inverclyde, Scotland
Inverkip is a locality of 3,542 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.