Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
3,876 people live in this town in Inverclyde, Scotland. Band D council tax is £1,674.
On health it is strong (B) — life expectancy is 82.1 for men and 83.3 for women. A median £242,300 buys a home here, 5.9 times what households in the Inverclyde council area earn in a year. Its other grades sit near the middle: C+ for schools and B− for walkability. 13% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport.
Figures: life expectancy and incomes, ONS · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022. Kilmacolm has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
The 3 things Kilmacolm 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 Kilmacolm is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Kilmacolm has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 16 buildings inside Kilmacolm’s locality, 2 of them in the top category.
The archive holds 2 old photos and postcards going back to 1903.
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Kilmacolm.
People 65 and over make up 31% of the town, above Inverclyde’s towns (22%) and Scotland’s towns (19%) alike. The 15-to-24 age group makes up 7.9% of residents. Half of Kilmacolm is older than 53.3, half younger.
52% women, 48% men
About 91 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women. Women live longer than men, so towns with many older residents have more women.
| Kilmacolm | Inverclyde | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 14% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 7.9% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 15% | 23% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 32% | 30% | 27% |
| 65+ | 31% | 22% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 10% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 5.6% | 8.8% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 52% | 24% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Inverclyde and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
The one school in town appears below. 222 pupils attend Kilmacolm’s one primary school.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kilmacolm Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 222 | – |
Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects 4.5% of the town. At the census, 21% of people here had a disability, below both Inverclyde’s towns (30%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Women here live to 83.3 on average and men to 82.1 (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | Kilmacolm | Inverclyde | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 84% | 74% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 4.5% | 9.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 21% | 30% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · The census answers take no account of age, so a young town looks healthier; the Health Grade relies on age-adjusted measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Only one town in Inverclyde has more listed buildings for its size than Kilmacolm. Its listed buildings include "Windyhill", Rowantreehill Road Kilmacolm, Category A. Category B covers 9 of them, Category A 2. It has 16 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 2 Category A, 9 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Social housing holds 4% of households, lower than both Inverclyde’s towns (26%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Only one of the 5 towns in Inverclyde costs more to buy into than Kilmacolm, whose median sale is £242,300. 9% of households are private tenants.
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; 38% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Home was the main workplace for 38% of workers at the census. 1.3% of 16 to 64s claimed unemployment benefits in 2026, below Inverclyde’s towns (2.9%) and Scotland’s towns (2.8%) alike. Of the commuters living in Kilmacolm, 6% work in the town itself. For every resident in work, Kilmacolm has 0.5 jobs.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
16 listed buildings in Kilmacolm, 2 of them in the top category.
"Windyhill", Rowantreehill Road Kilmacolm: Photo: Charles Rennie Mackintosh · Public domain · Kilmacolm Parish Church ("Old Kirk"), Main Street, Kilmacolm: Photo: david cameron photographer · CC BY-SA 2.0
3 notable people were born in Kilmacolm.
Hedrick Smith: Djembayz, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Dallas Campbell: Jacob Mansfield, CC BY-SA 4.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kilmacolm | 3,876 | — | — | B | — | B |
| Port Glasgow | 14,260 | 2.9 | — | A | — | D− |
| Bridge of Weir | 4,927 | 3.4 | — | A− | — | B− |
| Houston | 6,206 | 4.3 | — | B− | — | A |
| Dumbarton | 21,027 | 4.6 | — | B+ | — | D− |
| Bishopton | 10,048 | 4.8 | — | B− | — | A− |
| Kilbarchan | 3,367 | 5.2 | — | A | — | C+ |
| Linwood | 8,408 | 5.8 | — | 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.
An older town. At the 2022 Census, 31% of residents were 65 or over and 32% were 45 to 64, against 19% and 27% across Scotland’s towns; 15% were under 15. More households own their home than across Scotland’s towns: 85%, against 60%.
Band D council tax in Kilmacolm 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.
Town in Inverclyde, Scotland
Kilmacolm is a locality of 3,876 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.