Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 8,794 in North Lanarkshire, Scotland. Band D council tax is £1,555.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Shotts has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is cost of living (A+): the 74th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £149,300, 3.4 years of area income; rent £779 a month. Its weakest is health (D−): life expectancy 74.7 for men, 79.2 for women.
The 3 things Shotts 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 Shotts is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Shotts has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists them inside Shotts’ locality.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Shotts.
At the census, 10% of residents said their health was bad or very bad, higher than both North Lanarkshire’s towns (9%) and Scotland’s towns (7.2%). Disability touches 30% of Shotts’ population. Self-reported good health: 72% of Shotts’ residents.
| Census 2022 | Shotts | North Lanarkshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 72% | 75% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 10% | 9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 30% | 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.
Below are two of its 4 schools, each with why it was picked. Some 1,215 pupils attend Shotts’s three primaries and one secondary.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dykehead Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 270 | – |
| Calderhead High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 575 | D |
Households that own their home make up 55%. Social housing holds 35% of households, higher than both North Lanarkshire’s towns (28%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). Behind the median of £149,300: 420 sales in Shotts’s data zones, 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.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Relative to its size, Shotts keeps 5 listed buildings per 10,000 residents, between North Lanarkshire’s towns (3) and Scotland’s towns (22).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
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.
For every resident in work, Shotts has 0.6 jobs. The car took 83% of commuters, higher than both North Lanarkshire’s towns (80%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). Of the commuters living here, 18% work in the town itself.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Degrees are held by 18% of adults, lower than both North Lanarkshire’s towns (23%) and Scotland’s towns (32%). Ages in Shotts split evenly at 41.8: half are older, half younger. 18% of residents are 65 or over.
48% women, 52% men
About 106 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Shotts | North Lanarkshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.4% | 12% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 29% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 18% | 18% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 25% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.4% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 9.1% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 18% | 23% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · North Lanarkshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
28 notable people were born in Shotts.
Matthew Baillie: William Owen, Public domain · Andrew Keir: unknown (20th Century Fox), Public domain
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shotts | 8,794 | — | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Harthill | 2,613 | 3.3 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Newmains | 5,364 | 3.8 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Fauldhouse | 4,587 | 3.8 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Cleland | 3,043 | 4.7 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Whitburn | 11,772 | 5.2 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Wishaw | 30,190 | 5.7 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Law | 3,293 | 5.8 | — | 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.
Band D council tax in Shotts 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 £149,300, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 74th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland
Shotts is a locality of 8,794 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.