Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
14,260 people live in this town in Inverclyde, Scotland. Council tax at Band D comes to £1,674.
Cost of living is its strong suit: homes sell for a median £92,100, about 2.2 times local household income. Health lags: life expectancy is 75.4 for men and 79.5 for women. Natural hazards weigh more here: 2.4% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding. 16% of adults are qualified to degree level.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Port Glasgow without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
The 3 things Port Glasgow 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 Port Glasgow is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Port Glasgow without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 19 buildings inside Port Glasgow’s locality, 3 of them in the top category, and 1 scheduled monument.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Port Glasgow. Best known first.
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandNewark Castlein town
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandDumbarton Castle4.4 km outside town, to the east
Museum · National Trust for ScotlandGeilston Garden3.9 km outside town, to the north
MuseumMcLean Museum and Art Gallery4 km outside town, to the northwestCastleCastleKilmahew Castle4.4 km outside town, to the northMuseumMuseumScottish Fire and Rescue Service Museum and Heritage Centre3.2 km outside town, to the northwestPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Port Glasgow.
Young adults of 15 to 24 are a tenth of the population. Just over a fifth of residents are 65 or over, near Inverclyde’s towns (22%) and higher than Scotland’s towns (19%). Residents of Port Glasgow have a median age of 45.1.
52% women, 48% men
About 92 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Port Glasgow | Inverclyde | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 14% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 10% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 24% | 23% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 30% | 27% |
| 65+ | 22% | 22% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 27% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 8.8% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 9.8% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 16% | 24% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Inverclyde and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Some 2,135 pupils attend Port Glasgow’s four primaries and two secondaries. Below are two of its 7 schools, each with why it was picked.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newark Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 369 | – |
| Port Glasgow High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 545 | B− |
Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects just over a tenth of the town. A third of residents have a disability, above both Inverclyde’s towns (30%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Asked at the census, 71% of residents of Port Glasgow said they were in good or very good health.
| Census 2022 | Port Glasgow | Inverclyde | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 71% | 74% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 12% | 9.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 33% | 30% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · No age adjustment applies to these census answers, which flatter younger towns; the Health Grade’s measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them, do allow for age.
31% of households live in social housing. No town in Inverclyde costs less to buy into than Port Glasgow, at £92,100, the lowest of 5. Private renters make up 10% of households, lower than both Inverclyde’s towns (11%) and Scotland’s towns (13%).
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; 29% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Port Glasgow counts 0.7 jobs per working resident. Of the commuters living locally, 22% work in the town itself. For 31% of commuters, work was under 5 km away. At the census, 24% went to work on foot, by bike or by public transport, above Inverclyde’s towns (22%) but below 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.
For its size, Port Glasgow has the fewest listed buildings of the towns in Inverclyde. Its listed buildings include Bay Street/Robert Street, Gourock Ropeworks, Category A. At the top of the list, 3 are Category A and 12 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
19 listed buildings in Port Glasgow, 3 of them in the top category.
Bay Street/Robert Street, Gourock Ropeworks: Photo: Thomas Nugent · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 2 Parkhill Avenue, Holy Family Roman Catholic Church and Presbytery: Photo: Thomas Nugent · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Port Glasgow Harbour, Warehouses on West Quay: Photo: Thomas Nugent · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Jean Street, Railway Bridge, Bridge Gou/29: Photo: Thomas Nugent · CC BY-SA 2.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Port Glasgow | 14,260 | — | — | A | — | D− |
| Kilmacolm | 3,876 | 2.9 | — | B | — | B |
| Greenock | 42,870 | 4.2 | — | A | — | D− |
| Dumbarton | 21,027 | 4.4 | — | B+ | — | D− |
| Bonhill | 8,608 | 5.5 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Alexandria | 6,260 | 5.6 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Helensburgh | 14,128 | 5.8 | — | B | — | C+ |
| Bridge of Weir | 4,927 | 6.2 | — | A− | — | B− |
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 £92,100, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 149th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Band D council tax in Port Glasgow 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
Port Glasgow is a locality of 14,260 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.