Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A Band D home pays £1,555 in council tax. 19,488 people live in this town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Bellshill’s best grade is for cost of living — homes sell for a median £122,800, about 2.8 times local household income. It is easy to get around without a car: on the way to work, 20% walk, cycle or take a bus or train. Health outcomes fall short of most towns (D−): life expectancy 73.1 for men, 77.9 for women. Its other grades sit near the middle: B for schools and B for hazard risk.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Bellshill has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Bellshill 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 Bellshill is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Without street-level crime figures from Police Scotland, Bellshill has no Safety Grade, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 3 buildings inside Bellshill’s locality, 3 of them in the second category.
The archive holds 1 old photo or postcard going back to 1900.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Bellshill. Best known first.
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandBothwell Castle3.4 km outside town, to the west
CathedralMotherwell Cathedral2.3 km outside town, to the southeast
Museum · National Trust for ScotlandDavid Livingstone Museum2.7 km outside town, to the west
Theme parkM&D's Theme Park700 m outside town, to the southwest
CastleDalzell House4.5 km outside town, to the southeast
MuseumLow Parks Museum2.9 km outside town, to the southPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Bellshill.
15% are under 15, lower than North Lanarkshire’s towns (16%) and near Scotland’s towns (15%). At 43.9, the median resident of Bellshill sits in the middle of the age range. Those 65 and older account for 19% of residents.
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Bellshill | North Lanarkshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 12% | 12% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 24% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 29% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 19% | 18% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 26% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.6% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 16% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · North Lanarkshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Bellshill’s six primaries and two secondaries have 2,872 pupils between them. Two of its 8 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mossend Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 304 | – |
| Cardinal Newman High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 813 | B− |
At the census, 11% of residents said their health was bad or very bad, above both North Lanarkshire’s towns (9%) and Scotland’s towns (7.2%). Disability touches 31% of Bellshill’s population. Self-reported good health: 71% of the town’s residents.
| Census 2022 | Bellshill | North Lanarkshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 71% | 75% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 11% | 9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 31% | 26% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · These answers aren’t adjusted for age, so young towns look healthier; the Health Grade uses age-adjusted measures, including life expectancy and early deaths.
Households that own their home make up 51%. Private renters make up one in ten households, above North Lanarkshire’s towns (9%) but below Scotland’s towns (13%). Only one of the 24 towns in North Lanarkshire costs less to buy into than Bellshill, whose median sale is £122,800.
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.
For every resident in work, Bellshill has 0.4 jobs. Short trips to work, under 5 km: 47%, above both North Lanarkshire’s towns (34%) and Scotland’s towns (44%). Driving is how 77% of commuters got to work at the census.
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.
Bellshill has 3 listed buildings inside its locality on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 3 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
3 listed buildings in Bellshill.
Bellshill, Main Street, Bellshill West Church Including Boundary Walls and Piers: Photo: WeeHolly · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mossend, Calder Road and Hope Street, Holy Family Roman Catholic Church with Presbytery and Church Hall: Photo: Chris Upson · CC BY-SA 2.0
261 notable people were born in Bellshill.
Matt Busby: Kurt Nielsen © Scanpix, Public domain · Ally McCoist: The original uploader was Dudesleeper at English Wikipedia. (Original text: Dudesleeper), CC BY 3.0 · Sheena Easton: djnaquin67, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Billy McNeill: Nationaal Archief, Den Haag, Rijksfotoarchief, CC BY-SA 3.0 nl · John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan: ©House of Lords / photography by Roger Harris, CC BY 3.0 · Stephen O'Donnell: Andrew Hendo, CC BY-SA 3.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bellshill | 19,488 | — | — | A+ | — | D− |
| New Stevenston | 6,298 | 1.7 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Holytown | 5,121 | 1.7 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Viewpark | 15,832 | 2 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Bothwell | 7,002 | 2.2 | — | A | — | C+ |
| Motherwell | 33,021 | 2.2 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Carfin | 4,427 | 2.5 | — | A | — | D |
| Uddingston | 6,181 | 2.5 | — | A+ | — | 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £122,800, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 54th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Band D council tax in Bellshill is £1,555 for 2026–27, less than in 98% 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 Lanarkshire, Scotland
Bellshill is a locality of 19,488 people, in the North Lanarkshire 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.