Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
It is a town of 2,530 residents in North Yorkshire, Yorkshire and The Humber.
A good place to live, if you can afford it. Its strongest is jobs & income (A+): mean household income £70,539; 0.6% of 16 to 64s claim unemployment benefits. Housing is expensive: the median home sold for £587,500, 10.1 years of area income. Overall, that makes an A, good for #3 of 54 in North Yorkshire. That leaves it better than 95% of UK towns. Hazard risk is weaker too (D) — 3.3% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea.
Figures: income, ONS · claimants, DWP · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · flood risk, Environment Agency.
ONS publishes one rent for all of North Yorkshire, so this town's Cost Grade uses house prices and council tax only.
The 3 things Pannal does most differently from other towns.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within England), ordered by how far Pannal is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic England lists 10 buildings inside Pannal’s built-up area, 3 of them Grade II*.
10% of its homes were built before 1919, against 15% in the typical UK town.
The archive holds 3 old photos and postcards going back to 1906.
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Pannal.
There were 4.5 anti-social behaviour reports per 1,000 residents (not graded), below both North Yorkshire’s towns (10.4) and England’s towns (7.8). Violence accounts for 9.1 recorded crimes per 1,000 residents a year. A year of reports to August 2026 adds up to 53 offences in Pannal and 11 cases of nuisance behaviour. Burglary and damage add up to 4.1 per 1,000 residents each year.
Not gradedAnti-social behaviour, shoplifting and other theft are shown but left out of the Safety Grade, which counts violence and crimes against homes and vehicles per resident.
data.police.uk street-level crime · points inside the ONS built-up-area boundary · OGL
Attainment 8 at the 4 secondary schools within 3 km averages 54.3, and 62% of pupils get grade 5 or above in English and maths. Its one school is below. At the 9 primary schools within 3 km, just over two thirds of pupils reach the expected standard in reading, writing and maths (three-year average). Pannal Primary School’s results beat three quarters of schools in England like it.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pannal Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 452 | A− |
Disability touches 15% of Pannal’s population. 87% of the town’s residents described their health as good or very good at the census, higher than both North Yorkshire’s towns (81%) and England’s towns (82%). Seeing a GP means leaving Pannal: the nearest practice is 1.5 miles away.
| Census 2021 | Pannal | North Yorkshire | England |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 87% | 81% | 82% |
| Bad or very bad health | 3% | 5.5% | 5.2% |
| Disabled (Equality Act) | 15% | 19% | 17% |
ONS Census 2021, general health and disability · OHID Fingertips, life expectancy 2019–23 · 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.
Home ownership stands at 87% of households. Social housing holds 4% of households, below both North Yorkshire’s towns (16%) and England’s towns (18%). Pannal is the most expensive of the 56 towns in North Yorkshire: its median sale is £587,500.
| By type | Median | Sales |
|---|---|---|
| Detached | £715,000 | 57 |
| Semi-detached | £400,000 | 23 |
| Terraced | £295,000 | 19 |
HM Land Registry Price Paid · ONS private rents · MHCLG / Welsh Government council tax · ONS Census 2021 tenure · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Grade II* covers 3 of them. Of Pannal’s land, 6% lies in conservation areas, below North Yorkshire’s towns (13%) and England’s towns (7%) alike.
Historic England list, October 2026 · Valuation Office Agency, homes by build period · OGL
The Census was taken on 21 March 2021, in lockdown, so 51% of workers were mainly at home; shares here are of those who travelled.
83% of commuters drove, above both North Yorkshire’s towns (74%) and England’s towns (70%). Working from home was the norm for 51% of workers at the census. Work in town: 4% of resident commuters. Jobs per working resident: 0.8.
ONS Census 2021, method of travel and distance to work · ONS small-area income · DWP claimant count · OGL
People 65 and over make up 30% of the town, higher than both North Yorkshire’s towns (22%) and England’s towns (18%). Young adults of 15 to 24 are 7.2% of the population. Line up the people of Pannal by age and the one in the middle is 50.2.
51% women, 49% men
About 94 men for every 100 women. Across England, 51% of residents are women.
| Pannal | North Yorkshire | England | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 18% | 16% | 18% |
| 15–24 | 7.2% | 12% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 19% | 24% | 27% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 27% | 25% |
| 65+ | 30% | 22% | 18% |
| No qualifications | 8% | 18% | 18% |
| Apprenticeship | 3.4% | 6.4% | 5.3% |
| A levels or similar | 13% | 18% | 17% |
| Degree level | 55% | 32% | 34% |
ONS Census 2021 · North Yorkshire and England: all residents of their built-up areas · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Pannal. Best known first.
Castle · English HeritageSpofforth Castle4.4 km outside town, to the east
Garden · RHSRHS Garden Harlow Carr2.6 km outside town, to the northwest
Historic houseRudding Park2.7 km outside town, to the northeast
Art galleryMercer Gallery3.4 km outside town, to the northGardenGardenPlumpton Rocks4.7 km outside town, to the eastAttractionAttractionAlmscliffe Crag3.2 km outside town, to the southwestPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
10 listed buildings in Pannal.
Parish Church of St Robert of Knaresborough: Photo: DS Pugh · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Spacey Houses Farm: Photo: Mark Anderson · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Geograph
The nearest built-up areas, from ONS’s 2022 boundaries. See them on the map →
| Town | People | Miles | Overall | Cost | Safety | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pannal | 2,530 | — | A | D | A+ | A |
| Harrogate | 75,522 | 2.4 | A | B+ | C+ | B− |
| Spofforth | 1,175 | 3.7 | — | C | A− | A |
| Killinghall | 1,476 | 4.5 | — | C | B+ | A |
| Knaresborough | 15,781 | 4.7 | A− | B− | B− | B |
| Hampsthwaite | 1,169 | 5.1 | — | C | A+ | A |
| Pool-in-Wharfedale | 1,991 | 5.3 | — | D | A | A+ |
| East Keswick | 1,145 | 5.5 | — | D− | A+ | A+ |
Spofforth, Killinghall, Hampsthwaite, Pool-in-Wharfedale and East Keswick have fewer than 2,500 residents, so they get subject grades but no overall grade. People: Census 2021. Miles: centre to centre.
Police recorded 53 crimes inside Pannal’s built-up area in the 12 months to August 2026, 36% of them violence and sexual offences, a police category that includes harassment and stalking.
Homes cost more than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £587,500, against £277,000 in the typical UK town. By type: terraced houses £295,000, semi-detached houses £400,000 and detached houses £715,000.
GCSE results beat 91% of towns in England, and primary results beat 83% (Department for Education, Attainment 8 and Key Stage 2). One state school is inside the town; places are handled by North Yorkshire council.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in North Yorkshire, England
Pannal is a built-up area of 2,530 people, in the Harrogate council area. TownRatings uses ONS’s 2022 built-up areas as towns: the physical town, as people mean the word, rather than a council district, so its figures cover the town itself.
Built from ONS geography and Census 2021
Sources: ONS Census 2021, output areas summed to the ONS 2022 built-up area · HM Land Registry Price Paid (standard sales, September 2023 to August 2026) · ONS Price Index of Private Rents (August 2026, by council) · MHCLG and Welsh Government council tax, Band D 2026–27 (with parish precepts in England) · data.police.uk street-level crime, 36 months to August 2026, points inside the built-up-area boundary · ONS small-area life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, 2019 to 2023 (England and Wales), OHID Fingertips small-area indicators (England) and Census 2021 health, adjusted for age · ONS small-area income estimates (financial year ending 2023) · DWP claimant count via Nomis (January to August 2026) · Historic England, National Heritage List for England (listed buildings, scheduled monuments, registered parks and gardens, battlefields, World Heritage Sites), October 2026, inside the ONS 2022 built-up-area boundary · Valuation Office Agency, Council Tax: stock of properties by build period (31 March 2025) · 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.
