Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Council tax at Band D comes to £1,691. Population 10,048: a town in Renfrewshire, Scotland.
Bishopton’s schools beat most: school leavers’ results beat 92% of Scottish towns. Health is a strength too: life expectancy is 82.1 for men and 84.2 for women. Natural hazards weigh more here: 1.4% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding. At a median £289,100, a home costs 6.9 times the yearly income of households in the Renfrewshire council area.
Figures: life expectancy and incomes, ONS · flood risk, SEPA · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years. Bishopton has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Bishopton 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 Bishopton is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Bishopton has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 1 building inside Bishopton’s locality.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Bishopton. Best known first.
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandDumbarton Castle3.9 km outside town, to the northwestAttractionAttractionAuchentoshan Distillery3.7 km outside town, to the northeastCastleCastleDargavel House500 m outside town, to the southAttractionAttractionOvertoun Bridge4.3 km outside town, to the northPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Bishopton.
Some 1,073 pupils attend Bishopton’s two primaries. Of its 2 schools, one is shown below, with the reason.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dargavel Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 638 | – |
At the census, 89% of people in Bishopton called their health good or very good, above Renfrewshire’s towns (78%) and Scotland’s towns (78%) alike. Disability touches 14% of the town’s population. Women here live to 84.2 on average and men to 82.1 (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | Bishopton | Renfrewshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 89% | 78% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 2.8% | 7.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 14% | 25% | 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.
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Historic Environment Scotland’s list puts 1 listed building inside Bishopton’s locality.
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; 36% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Work in town: 4% of resident commuters. The car took 86% of commuters, above both Renfrewshire’s towns (76%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). Working from home was the norm for 36% of workers at the census.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Owners make up 91% of households, above both Renfrewshire’s towns (65%) and Scotland’s towns (60%). Council and housing-body homes hold 4% of households. No town in Renfrewshire costs more to buy into than Bishopton, at £289,100, the highest of 11.
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 age that splits Bishopton in two is 38.2. 7.7% of residents are 15 to 24, below both Renfrewshire’s towns (11%) and Scotland’s towns (12%). Add to that, the 65-and-over age group makes up 16% of residents.
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Bishopton | Renfrewshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 20% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 7.7% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 34% | 26% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 22% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 16% | 19% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 6.8% | 17% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.2% | 8.5% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 46% | 30% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Renfrewshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
9 notable people were born in Bishopton.
Tom Bradshaw: LFC, Public domain · Fred Morrison: Carstor, CC BY 4.0 · John Denniston: Jones, Gerald Edgar, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bishopton | 10,048 | — | — | B− | — | A− |
| Erskine | 14,857 | 2.3 | — | A | — | C− |
| Bowling and Old Kilpatrick | 4,761 | 2.4 | — | B+ | — | C |
| Houston | 6,206 | 3.1 | — | B− | — | A |
| Dumbarton | 21,027 | 3.7 | — | B+ | — | D− |
| Linwood | 8,408 | 3.8 | — | A | — | D− |
| Clydebank | 26,220 | 3.9 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Duntocher and Hardgate | 6,573 | 4 | — | B+ | — | 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.
GCSE results beat 92% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). Bishopton has 2 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Band D council tax in Bishopton is £1,691 for 2026–27, less than in 90% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Town in Renfrewshire, Scotland
Bishopton is a locality of 10,048 people, in the Renfrewshire 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.