Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 8,658 in North Ayrshire, Scotland.
Where it does best is cost of living: a typical home costs £85,100 and rent runs £656 a month. It is easy to get around without a car: just over a fifth of commuters get to work on foot, by bike or by public transport. Its lowest grade is for health (D−) — life expectancy 72.8 for men, 79.3 for women. Pupils here do less well than most (C+): school leavers’ results beat 40% of Scottish towns.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS. Stevenston has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Stevenston 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 Stevenston is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Stevenston has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 16 buildings inside Stevenston’s locality, 9 of them in the second category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Stevenston. Best known first.
CastleKerelaw Castlein town
CastleArdrossan Castle2.2 km outside town, to the west
Abbey or prioryKilwinning Abbey2.3 km outside town, to the east
CastleEglinton Castle3.8 km outside town, to the east
MuseumScottish Maritime Museum3.5 km outside town, to the southeast
CastleBoydston Castle3.5 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 Stevenston.
Children under 15 count for 17% of the people here. People 65 and over make up 21% of the town, below North Ayrshire’s towns (23%) but above Scotland’s towns (19%). Stevenston has a median age of 44.5 years.
52% women, 48% men
About 91 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Stevenston | North Ayrshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 17% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 12% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 22% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 21% | 23% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 26% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.2% | 8.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 10% | 11% |
| Degree level | 16% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · North Ayrshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Some 1,308 pupils attend Stevenston’s four primaries and one secondary. Below are two of its 6 schools, each with why it was picked.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Glencairn Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 225 | – |
| Auchenharvie AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 678 | B+ |
Stevenston’s share in bad or very bad health, 11%, is the highest of the 11 towns in North Ayrshire. 70% of the town’s residents described their health as good or very good at the census, lower than both North Ayrshire’s towns (74%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). Disability touches nearly a third of the town’s population.
| Census 2022 | Stevenston | North Ayrshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 70% | 74% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 11% | 9.3% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 32% | 29% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Read these answers with age in mind: they aren’t adjusted, so younger places do better. The Health Grade uses age-adjusted measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them.
10% rent privately, about level with North Ayrshire’s towns (10%) and below Scotland’s towns (13%). No town in North Ayrshire costs less to buy into than Stevenston, at £85,100, the lowest of 11. Social renters account for 36% of households.
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; 26% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Driving is how just over three quarters of commuters got to work at the census. 13% of commuters who live in Stevenston also work there. Jobs per working resident: 0.7. Also worth knowing: at the census, 22% went to work on foot, by bike or by public transport, above North Ayrshire’s towns (20%) 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.
Category B covers 9 of them. 2 scheduled monuments lie in Stevenston. The town has 18 listed buildings for every 10,000 residents.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
16 listed buildings in Stevenston.
Ardeer, Ici Plant, "South African Pavilion" (Former Ici Staff Restaurant): Photo: Rosser1954 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Champion Shell Inn, 5 Schoolwell Street, Stevenston: Photo: Billy McCrorie · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stevenston | 8,658 | — | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Saltcoats | 12,171 | 1.2 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Kilwinning | 16,224 | 2.1 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Ardrossan | 10,338 | 2.2 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Irvine | 34,005 | 4.3 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Dalry | 5,274 | 4.7 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| West Kilbride | 4,876 | 5.3 | — | A− | — | C |
| Dreghorn | 3,362 | 5.7 | — | 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 £85,100, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 83rd most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
At the 2022 Census, 12% of Stevenston’s 8,658 residents were 15 to 24 and 21% were 65 or over, against 12% and 19% across Scotland’s towns.
Band D council tax in Stevenston 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.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in North Ayrshire, Scotland
Stevenston is a locality of 8,658 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.