Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Band D council tax is £1,691. 23,812 people live in this large town in Renfrewshire, Scotland.
Buying a home costs less than in most towns (A): a typical home costs £155,300 and rent runs £768 a month. Its weakest subject is health — life expectancy 76.6 for men, 80.8 for women. Hazard risk is weaker too — 5.4% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea. Pupils here do less well than most (C): school leavers’ results beat nearly a third of Scottish towns.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Renfrew without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Renfrew 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 Renfrew is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Renfrew without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 16 buildings inside Renfrew’s locality, 2 of them in the top category.
The archive holds 1 old photo or postcard going back to 1919.
Explore the history →Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Renfrew. Best known first.
Big drawMuseumKelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum4.9 km outside town, to the east · 1M visitors a year
Big drawMuseumRiverside Museum3.9 km outside town, to the east · 1.1M visitors a year (2015)
CathedralSt Mirin's Cathedral1.6 km outside town, to the southwest
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandCrookston Castle3.7 km outside town, to the southeast
GardenGlasgow Botanic Gardens4.9 km outside town, to the eastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Renfrew.
Social housing holds 16% of households, below both Renfrewshire’s towns (22%) and Scotland’s towns (24%). The median, £155,300, rests on 1,726 sales in the town’s data zones from 2023 to 2025. The private rented sector houses 13% 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.
Between them, five primaries and two secondaries teach 3,703 pupils in Renfrew. Of its 7 schools, two are shown below, each with the reason.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| St James's Primary School (Renfrew)Largest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 551 | – |
| Trinity High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,026 | B+ |
7.1% of residents report bad or very bad health. At the census, 24% of people here had a disability, below Renfrewshire’s towns (25%) and close to Scotland’s towns (24%).
| Census 2022 | Renfrew | Renfrewshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 78% | 78% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.1% | 7.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 24% | 25% | 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.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 31% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
76% of commuters took the car to work at the census. Work in town: 17% of resident commuters. Renfrew counts 1.6 jobs per working resident. Short trips to work, under 5 km: 48%, above both Renfrewshire’s towns (37%) and Scotland’s towns (44%).
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Category B covers 11 of them, Category A 2. Renfrew’s listed buildings include The Cross, Renfrew Town Hall, Category A. Relative to its size, Renfrew keeps 7 listed buildings per 10,000 residents.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
28% of adults hold a degree, below Renfrewshire’s towns (30%) and Scotland’s towns (32%) alike. Ages in Renfrew split evenly at 42.1: half are older, half younger.
51% women, 49% men
About 94 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Renfrew | Renfrewshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 10% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 28% | 26% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 26% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 20% | 19% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 17% | 17% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 9.7% | 8.5% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 10% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 28% | 30% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Renfrewshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
16 listed buildings in Renfrew, 2 of them in the top category.
The Cross, Renfrew Town Hall: Photo: G Laird · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Argyle Stone & St Conval's "Chariot" by Blythswood West Lodge Inchinnan Road: Photo: Rosser1954 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Renfield Street, Renfrew North Parish Church with Boundary Walls, Railings, Gates and Gatepiers: Photo: WeeHolly · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ferry Inn, Ferry Road & Clyde Street, Renfrew Ferry.: Photo: Johnny Durnan · CC BY-SA 2.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Renfrew | 23,812 | — | — | A | — | D |
| Clydebank | 26,220 | 2.6 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Paisley | 79,351 | 2.8 | — | A | — | D− |
| Erskine | 14,857 | 2.9 | — | A | — | C− |
| Duntocher and Hardgate | 6,573 | 3.7 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Faifley | 4,785 | 3.8 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Bearsden | 28,507 | 3.9 | — | B− | — | A |
| Bowling and Old Kilpatrick | 4,761 | 4.3 | — | 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.
Surface water isn’t included. Check a specific address on GOV.UK’s flood risk service.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £155,300, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 172nd most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Large town in Renfrewshire, Scotland
Renfrew is a locality of 23,812 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.