Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,674. The large town has 47,885 residents and lies in Perth and Kinross, Scotland.
Perth’s best grade is for cost of living — a typical home costs £162,900 and rent runs £760 a month. Getting around on foot or by bus is easy: on the way to work, 31% walk, cycle or take a bus or train. Health outcomes fall short of most towns: men here can expect to live to 77.6, women to 81.5. The rest of its grades are middling: B− for schools and C+ for hazard risk.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Perth without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Perth 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 Perth is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Perth without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 357 buildings inside Perth’s locality, 20 of them in the top category, and 4 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds 4 old photos and postcards going back to 1890 and a map from c. 1948.
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Perth. Best known first.
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandHuntingtower Castlein town
CastleBalhousie Castlein town
Garden · National Trust for ScotlandBranklyn Gardenin town
Art galleryPerth Art Galleryin town
MuseumPerth Museumin townPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Perth.
17% rent privately, above both Perth and Kinross’ towns (14%) and Scotland’s towns (13%). This Perth and Kinross town is the cheapest of the 8 towns in Perth and Kinross: its median sale is £162,900. Owners make up 56% of households.
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.
Below are two of its 19 schools, each with why it was picked. Between them, 13 primaries and five secondaries teach 7,403 pupils in Perth.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oakbank Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 382 | – |
| Perth High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,485 | B+ |
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.
Jobs per working resident: 1.3. The car took two thirds of commuters, lower than both Perth and Kinross’ towns (71%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). In 2026, 3.3% of 16 to 64s were claiming unemployment benefits. 68% of commuters who live in Perth also work there.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Of the 8 towns in Perth and Kinross, Perth has the second-largest share in bad or very bad health: 6.2%. Asked at the census, four in five residents of Perth said they were in good or very good health.
| Census 2022 | Perth | Perth and Kinross | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 80% | 80% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 6.2% | 6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 24% | 24% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Because the census answers ignore age, a younger population lifts them; that is why the Health Grade is built on age-adjusted measures like life expectancy and early deaths.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
At the top of the list, 20 are Category A and 192 Category B. Perth’s listed buildings include Atholl Crescent, 2-8 (All Numbers), Category A. Scaled to its population, that is 75 listed buildings for every 10,000 people here. Conservation areas cover 7% of the town’s land, lower than Perth and Kinross’ towns (8%) yet higher than Scotland’s towns (1%).
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Just over a tenth of the population is aged 15 to 24, higher than Perth and Kinross’ towns (10%) yet lower than Scotland’s towns (12%). Over-65s are a fifth of the population. Typical age here: 42.6, the median.
51% women, 49% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Perth | Perth and Kinross | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 12% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 27% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 20% | 24% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 16% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.7% | 7.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 31% | 33% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Perth and Kinross and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
357 listed buildings in Perth, 20 of them in the top category.
Canal Street and Tay Street, Greyfriars Burial Ground Including Gates and Boundary Walls: Photo: Aaron Bradley from Vancouver, Canada · CC BY-SA 2.0 · York Place, A K Bell Library Including Boundary Wall to York Place: Photo: Delphine_Dallison · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Perth Sheriff Court and Justice of the Peace Court, Tay Street, Perth: Photo: Simon Armstrong · CC BY-SA 3.0 · High Street 104, 106 (S. Side) Guildhall: Photo: Hugh Venables · CC BY-SA 2.0
193 notable people were born in Perth.
Ewan McGregor: Kevin Paul, CC BY 4.0 · John Buchan: Bassano Ltd, Public domain · Charles Mackay: Herbert Watkins, Public domain · Michael Fallon: Chris McAndrew, CC BY 3.0 · Margaret Stewart, Dauphine of France: Jacques Le Boucq, Public domain · Effie Gray: Thomas Richmond (1802-1874), 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perth | 47,885 | — | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Scone | 5,219 | 2.4 | — | A | — | C+ |
| Bridge of Earn | 2,917 | 4.3 | — | 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.
That is 3.1 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Atholl Street and North Methven Street, St Ninian's Cathedral (Scottish Episcopal Church). It also has 4 scheduled monuments.
Band D council tax in Perth is £1,674 for 2026–27, less than in 92% 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 £162,900, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Large town in Perth and Kinross, Scotland
Perth is a locality of 47,885 people, in the Perth and Kinross 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.