HolytownNorth Lanarkshire
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,555. 5,121 people live in this town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Is Holytown a good place to live?
Holytown’s strongest is cost of living (A+): a typical home costs £140,600 and rent runs £779 a month. Health lags: men here can expect to live to 74, women to 83.2. The rest of its grades are middling: C+ for schools and B− for walkability. Hazard risk is lower than in most UK towns (A−).
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · commuting, Census 2022 · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Holytown has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
What makes Holytown stand out
The 3 things Holytown does most differently from other towns.
How Holytown grades
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Holytown is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Holytown has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Motherwell Cathedral and 13 more in and around Holytown
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Holytown. Best known first.
CathedralMotherwell Cathedral2.9 km outside town, to the south
CastleDalzell House4.9 km outside town, to the south
Theme parkM&D's Theme Park3.4 km outside town, to the southwest
MuseumLow Parks Museum4.9 km outside town, to the southwest
MuseumSummerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life4 km outside town, to the northwest
MuseumMotherwell Heritage Centre3 km outside town, to the southPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Photo credits (6)
- Motherwell Cathedral: Anne Burgess, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Dalzell House: Jonathan Oldenbuck, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
- M&D's Theme Park: Gordon McKinlay, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Low Parks Museum: Supergolden, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
- Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life: Jayhoolihan, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
- Motherwell Heritage Centre: Chris Upson, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
The data
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Holytown.
Holytown’s grade for cost of living grade: an A+
9% rent privately, above North Lanarkshire’s towns (9%) but below Scotland’s towns (13%). 195 sales in Holytown’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £140,600. The owner-occupied share of households is 64%.
Median sale price · 2023 to 2025, at early-2025 prices
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.
Holytown’s schools fall behind 59% of Scottish towns on results
Holytown’s two primaries have 488 pupils between them. Of its 2 schools, one is shown below, with the reason.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holytown Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 260 | – |
Holytown’s life expectancy trails 80% of UK towns
Asked at the census, 75% of residents of Holytown said they were in good or very good health. 9% of residents described their health as bad or very bad, close to North Lanarkshire’s towns (9%) and above Scotland’s towns (7.2%). Disability touches a quarter of the town’s population.
| Census 2022 | Holytown | North Lanarkshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 75% | 75% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 9% | 9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 25% | 26% | 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.
No listed buildings in Holytown
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Historic Environment Scotland’s list has no building inside Holytown’s locality.
Listed buildings by grade · Historic Environment Scotland
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
More commuters in Holytown drive than in North Lanarkshire’s towns or Scotland’s towns: 84%
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 27% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
For every resident in work, Holytown has 5 jobs. 14% of commuters walked, cycled or took the bus or train at the census, below both North Lanarkshire’s towns (17%) and Scotland’s towns (27%). Work in town: 10% of resident commuters.
How commuters got to work · March 2022
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Degrees are less common in Holytown than in North Lanarkshire’s towns or across Scotland’s towns: 19% of adults
Holytown has a median age of 41.4. Children under 15 make up 15%, below North Lanarkshire’s towns (16%) and close to Scotland’s towns (15%). The 65-and-over age group makes up 17% of residents.
Ages · share of residents
Qualifications · residents 16 and older
Women and men · all residents
51% women, 49% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Holytown | North Lanarkshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 12% | 12% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 28% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 17% | 18% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 22% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.6% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 19% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · North Lanarkshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Everything we know about Holytown
Famous people from Holytown
12 notable people were born in Holytown.
Photo credits
Robert Crosser: Harris & Ewing, Public domain
Holytown’s neighbours
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holytown | 5,121 | — | — | A+ | — | D |
| New Stevenston | 6,298 | 0.6 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Newarthill | 6,956 | 1 | — | A | — | D− |
| Carfin | 4,427 | 1.3 | — | A | — | D |
| Chapelhall | 7,061 | 1.6 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Bellshill | 19,488 | 1.7 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Motherwell | 33,021 | 2.4 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Cleland | 3,043 | 2.6 | — | 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.
Questions about Holytown
Is Holytown expensive to live in?
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £140,600, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 70th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
How much is council tax in Holytown?
Band D council tax in Holytown 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.
Does Holytown flood?
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
About Holytown
Town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland
Holytown is a locality of 5,121 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
- Population
- 5,121 (Census 2022)
- Council
- North Lanarkshire
- Nation
- Scotland
- Area
- 2.2 sq mi (5.8 km²)
- NRS code
- S52000316
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.