Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,674. A town of 5,219 in Perth and Kinross, Scotland.
Cost of living is its strong suit (A): homes sell for a median £266,000, about 5.5 times local household income. It is easy to get around without a car: 18% of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Its weakest subject is schools (C−) — school leavers’ results beat 25% of Scottish towns. Health is weaker too (C+) — men here can expect to live to 78.4, women to 83.6.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · commuting, Census 2022 · life expectancy, ONS. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Scone has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Scone 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 Scone is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Scone has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 9 buildings inside Scone’s locality, 6 of them in the second category, and 1 scheduled monument.
The archive holds 2 old photos and postcards going back to 1866.
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Scone. Best known first.
CastleScone Palace1.3 km outside town, to the west
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandHuntingtower Castle4.6 km outside town, to the west
CastleBalhousie Castle2 km outside town, to the southwest
Abbey or prioryScone Abbey1.1 km outside town, to the west
Art galleryPerth Art Gallery2.1 km outside town, to the southwest
MuseumPerth Museum2.3 km outside town, to the southwestPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Scone.
8.2% of residents are 15 to 24, below both Perth and Kinross’ towns (10%) and Scotland’s towns (12%). The age that splits Scone in two is 51.5. Among adults, 35% have a degree.
53% women, 47% men
About 88 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women. Women live longer than men, so towns with many older residents have more women.
| Scone | Perth and Kinross | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 8.2% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 20% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 26% | 27% | 27% |
| 65+ | 32% | 24% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 14% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.1% | 7.9% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 35% | 33% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Perth and Kinross and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
The one school in town appears below. 361 pupils attend Scone’s one primary school.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robert Douglas Memorial Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 361 | – |
Owners make up three quarters of households. Social housing holds 15% of households, below Perth and Kinross’ towns (21%) and Scotland’s towns (24%) alike. Only one of the 8 towns in Perth and Kinross costs more to buy into than Scone, whose median sale is £266,000.
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; 29% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Short trips to work, under 5 km: 56%, lower than Perth and Kinross’ towns (59%) yet higher than Scotland’s towns (44%). 6% of commuters who live in Scone also work there. There are 0.2 jobs in Scone for each resident in work.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
At the census, just over four fifths of people in Scone called their health good or very good, above both Perth and Kinross’ towns (80%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). A quarter of residents in Scone live with a disability.
| Census 2022 | Scone | Perth and Kinross | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 81% | 80% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 5.5% | 6% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 25% | 24% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Self-reported health favours young towns, since these answers ignore age; the Health Grade leans on age-adjusted measures such as 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.
Per 10,000 residents, Scone counts 17 listed buildings, lower than both Perth and Kinross’ towns (75) and Scotland’s towns (22). One scheduled monument lies in the town.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
9 listed buildings in Scone.
New Scone,stone circle,Grey Stanes: Photo: Ewen Rennie · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Cross of New Scone Junction of Cross Street and Abbey Road, New Scone.: Photo: kim traynor · CC BY-SA 2.0
7 notable people were born in Scone.
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield: Jean-Baptiste van Loo, Public domain · Jimmy Elder: GKeast, CC BY-SA 4.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scone | 5,219 | — | — | A | — | C+ |
| Perth | 47,885 | 2.4 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Bridge of Earn | 2,917 | 5.3 | — | A+ | — | C |
| Blairgowrie | 9,439 | 12 | — | 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 Scone 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.
GCSE results trail 75% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). One state school is inside the town; places are handled by the local council.
Town in Perth and Kinross, Scotland
Scone is a locality of 5,219 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.