Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,686. Population 3,362: a town in North Ayrshire, Scotland.
Housing is within reach: the median home sold for £110,500, 2.8 years of area income. Walkability is a strength too (B+) — on the way to work, 18% walk, cycle or take a bus or train. Health is its weak spot: life expectancy is 76.6 for men and 79 for women. School results trail most towns (C+): school leavers’ results beat 38% of Scottish towns.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Dreghorn without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
The 3 things Dreghorn 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 Dreghorn is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Dreghorn without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 2 buildings inside Dreghorn’s locality, 2 of them in the second category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Dreghorn.
19% of adults hold a degree, below both North Ayrshire’s towns (23%) and Scotland’s towns (32%). The 15-to-24 age group makes up 9.3% of residents. The median resident of Dreghorn is 49.2 years old. Under-15s account for 14% of the population.
52% women, 48% men
About 94 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.
| Dreghorn | North Ayrshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.3% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 20% | 22% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 30% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 26% | 23% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 22% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 11% | 8.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 9.5% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 19% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · North Ayrshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Below are its two schools. Some 1,667 pupils attend Dreghorn’s one primary and one secondary.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dreghorn Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 252 | – |
| Greenwood AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,415 | C+ |
Owners make up 67% of households, above North Ayrshire’s towns (60%) and Scotland’s towns (60%) alike. Private rents average £656 a month across the Ayrshires council area. The median, £110,500, rests on 138 sales in Dreghorn’s data zones from 2023 to 2025.
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.
At the census, 72% of people in Dreghorn called their health good or very good, below both North Ayrshire’s towns (74%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). Disability touches 29% of the town’s population.
| Census 2022 | Dreghorn | North Ayrshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 72% | 74% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 9.3% | 9.3% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 29% | 29% | 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.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 24% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
3% of commuters who live in Dreghorn also work there. Each working resident is matched by 0.6 jobs here. The car took four in five commuters, close to North Ayrshire’s towns (78%) and above Scotland’s towns (70%). The census counted nearly a quarter of workers working mainly from home.
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.
Dreghorn has 2 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 2 Category B. For its size, Dreghorn has the second fewest listed buildings of the towns in North Ayrshire.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Dreghorn. Best known first.
CastleDundonald Castle3.3 km outside town, to the southeast
CastleEglinton Castle4.1 km outside town, to the northwest
CastleAuchans3.1 km outside town, to the south
MuseumScottish Maritime Museum2.4 km outside town, to the westMuseumMuseumWellwood Burns Centre and Museum2.1 km outside town, to the westMuseumMuseumBig Idea3.5 km outside town, to the westPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
8 notable people were born in Dreghorn.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dreghorn | 3,362 | — | — | A+ | — | D |
| Irvine | 34,005 | 1.5 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Dundonald | 2,579 | 2.3 | — | A | — | C− |
| Crosshouse | 2,609 | 2.8 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Troon | 15,271 | 4 | — | A+ | — | C |
| Kilmaurs | 2,702 | 4.2 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Kilwinning | 16,224 | 4.7 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Kilmarnock | 47,073 | 5 | — | 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 £110,500, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 89th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Band D council tax in Dreghorn is £1,686 for 2026–27, less than in 91% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Town in North Ayrshire, Scotland
Dreghorn is a locality of 3,362 people, in the North Ayrshire 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.
