Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town in Midlothian, Scotland, home to 16,431 people. Band D council tax is £1,816.
Walking, cycling and public transport work well here: just over a quarter of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. The median home sold for £246,700, 4.8 times what households in the Midlothian council area earn in a year. Health outcomes fall short of most towns: men here can expect to live to 76.5, women to 82.9. The rest of its grades are middling: C+ for schools and B for hazard risk.
Figures: commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy and incomes, ONS · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · flood risk, SEPA. Penicuik has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Penicuik 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 Penicuik is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Penicuik has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 46 buildings inside Penicuik’s locality, 4 of them in the top category, and 1 scheduled monument.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Penicuik.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 32% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
There are 0.3 jobs in Penicuik for each resident in work. Short trips to work, under 5 km: 23%, below Midlothian’s towns (28%) and Scotland’s towns (44%) alike. About 17% of its commuters stay in Penicuik for work.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Below are two of its 7 schools, each with why it was picked. Between them, five primaries and two secondaries teach 2,581 pupils in Penicuik.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mauricewood Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 341 | – |
| Beeslack Community High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 780 | B− |
Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects 5.3% of the town. Just over four fifths of people in Penicuik rate their own health good or very good. At the census, 23% of people here had a disability, close to Midlothian’s towns (23%) and below Scotland’s towns (24%).
| Census 2022 | Penicuik | Midlothian | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 81% | 80% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 5.3% | 6.2% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 23% | 23% | 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.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Penicuik’s listed buildings include Glencorse Barracks, Clock Tower, Category A. Category B covers 21 of them, Category A 4. Of the town’s land, 5% lies in conservation areas, higher than both Midlothian’s towns (3%) and Scotland’s towns (1%).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Private renters make up 8% of households, between Midlothian’s towns (7%) and Scotland’s towns (13%). Nearly a fifth of households rent from a council or housing body. Only one of the 7 towns in Midlothian costs more to buy into than Penicuik, whose median sale is £246,700.
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.
People aged 15 to 24 make up a tenth of the town. Children under 15 make up 16%, below Midlothian’s towns (18%) and close to Scotland’s towns (15%). Half of Penicuik is older than 43.8, half younger.
51% women, 49% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Penicuik | Midlothian | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 18% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.8% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 26% | 27% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 26% | 26% | 27% |
| 65+ | 23% | 19% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 14% | 17% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.5% | 9.6% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 13% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 30% | 27% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Midlothian and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Penicuik. Best known first.
CastleRoslin Castle1.9 km outside town, to the northeast
Historic housePenicuik House1 km outside town, to the southwest
CastleUttershill Castle100 m outside town, to the southCastleCastleOldwoodhouselee Castle300 m outside town, to the eastChurchChurchRosslyn Chapel1.9 km outside town, to the northeastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
46 listed buildings in Penicuik, 4 of them in the top category.
22-34 (Even Nos) Bridge Street and 1-7 (Inclusive Nos) Park End, Including Archway: Photo: AlasdairW · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Penicuik,St Kentigern's Church & Clerk Mausoleum: Photo: Dawatters · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 25 Bog Road, Navaar House Hotel: Photo: AlasdairW · CC BY-SA 4.0 · High Street, Council Offices (Former Cowan Institute): Photo: kim traynor · CC BY-SA 2.0
14 notable people were born in Penicuik.
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson: The American Institute of Physics credits the photo [1] to AB Lagrelius & Westphal, which is the Swedish company used by the Nobel Foundation for most photos of its book series Les Prix Nobel., Public domain · Tom Walkinshaw: Ltosnar, CC BY-SA 4.0 · David Ewart: William James Topley, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Penicuik | 16,431 | — | — | B | — | C− |
| Loanhead | 7,007 | 3.8 | — | B− | — | C− |
| Bonnyrigg | 18,088 | 5 | — | B | — | C− |
| Gorebridge | 8,900 | 6.7 | — | B+ | — | D |
| Danderhall | 3,389 | 6.8 | — | B | — | C− |
| Mayfield | 14,259 | 6.9 | — | B+ | — | D |
| Edinburgh | 493,794 | 7.2 | — | B | — | C |
| Dalkeith | 15,125 | 7.3 | — | 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.
Its Category A buildings include Glencorse Barracks, Clock Tower. It also has 1 scheduled monument.
Band D council tax in Penicuik is £1,816 for 2026–27, less than in 86% 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 Midlothian, Scotland
Penicuik is a locality of 16,431 people, in the Midlothian 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.