Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Band D council tax is £1,555. The town has 5,364 residents and lies in North Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Buying a home costs less than in most towns (A+): homes sell for a median £154,600, about 3.5 times local household income. Residents’ health trails most towns (D−): life expectancy is 75.3 for men and 76.9 for women. Its remaining grades are unremarkable: C+ for schools and B for walkability. Natural hazards are less of a worry 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 publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Newmains without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
The 3 things Newmains 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 Newmains is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Newmains without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 7 buildings inside Newmains’s locality, 4 of them in the second category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Newmains.
The middle age in Newmains is 41.5. 17% are under 15, about level with North Lanarkshire’s towns (16%) and above Scotland’s towns (15%). The share aged 15 to 24 is 12%.
50% women, 50% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Newmains | North Lanarkshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 17% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 12% | 12% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 24% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 19% | 18% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 27% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.6% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 9.8% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 18% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · North Lanarkshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Newmains’s two primaries have 348 pupils between them. Below is one of its 2 schools, and why it was picked.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newmains Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 179 | – |
11% of residents report bad or very bad health. At the census, 32% of people here had a disability, above both North Lanarkshire’s towns (26%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Self-reported good health: 71% of Newmains’ residents.
| Census 2022 | Newmains | 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) | 32% | 26% | 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.
Private tenants account for 9% of households. 54% of households own their home, below North Lanarkshire’s towns (61%) and Scotland’s towns (60%) alike. 260 sales in Newmains’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £154,600.
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; 28% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
83% of commuters drove, above North Lanarkshire’s towns (80%) and Scotland’s towns (70%) alike. For 26% of commuters, work was under 5 km away. In 2026, 3.3% of 16 to 64s were claiming unemployment benefits.
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.
Scaled to its population, Newmains has 13 listed buildings per 10,000 people, higher than North Lanarkshire’s towns (3) yet lower than Scotland’s towns (22).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
11 notable people were born in Newmains.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newmains | 5,364 | — | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Cleland | 3,043 | 1.7 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Wishaw | 30,190 | 2 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Law | 3,293 | 2.7 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Carfin | 4,427 | 3.3 | — | A | — | D |
| Newarthill | 6,956 | 3.3 | — | A | — | D− |
| Shotts | 8,794 | 3.8 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| New Stevenston | 6,298 | 4.1 | — | 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.
Band D council tax in Newmains 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.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £154,600, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 80th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland
Newmains is a locality of 5,364 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.