Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 3,117 in Scottish Borders, Scotland.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Duns has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below. Its strongest subject is cost of living (A+): the 85th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £167,200, 3.8 years of area income; rent £760 a month. Its weakest is health (C−): life expectancy 80.1 for men, 81 for women.
The 3 things Duns 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 Duns is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Duns has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 157 buildings inside Duns’s locality, 69 of them in the second category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Duns.
Duns sits above both Scottish Borders’ towns (27%) and Scotland’s towns (24%) on this measure. 9% of households rent privately.
Registers of Scotland data-zone sale prices · Scottish Government council tax · Scotland’s Census 2022 tenure · OGL
Its two schools are below. The grade uses the secondaries its children go to; Scotland publishes no primary results by school.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duns Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 355 | – |
| Berwickshire High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 585 | B |
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 24% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
24% of workers worked mainly from home, below both Scottish Borders’ towns (28%) and Scotland’s towns (31%). 29% of commuters went to work on foot, by bike or by public transport at the census.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
77% of Duns’s residents described their health as good or very good in 2022, against 78% across Scottish Borders’s towns. 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.
| Census 2022 | Duns | Scottish Borders | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 77% | 78% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.5% | 6.4% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 26% | 25% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
That puts Duns above both Scottish Borders’ towns (131) and Scotland’s towns (22). Duns has 157 listed buildings on Historic Environment Scotland’s list: 0 Category A, 69 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
On this, Duns is above both Scottish Borders’ towns (26%) and Scotland’s towns (19%). Young adults of 15 to 24 are 9.5% of the population. The median resident of Duns is 49.9 years old.
52% women, 48% men
About 94 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.
| Duns | Scottish Borders | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.5% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 21% | 21% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 27% | 26% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 23% | 20% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.1% | 9.3% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 24% | 26% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Scottish Borders and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Duns. Best known first.
MuseumJim Clark Motorsport Museumin town
CastleDuns Castle500 m outside town, to the northwest
CastleWedderburn Castle1.4 km outside town, to the east
Historic houseManderston House1.7 km outside town, to the eastPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
157 listed buildings in Duns.
Church Square, Old Parish Church with Boundary Wall, Gatepiers and Graveyard: Photo: K&RHall · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Station Road, The Knoll Maternity Hospital with Boundary Wall and Gatepiers: Photo: K&RHall · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mercat Cross, Market Square: Photo: Victuallers · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 13 Castle Street, Ogwen: Photo: Victuallers · CC BY-SA 4.0
18 notable people were born in Duns.
John Duns Scotus: Justus van Gent / Pedro Berruguete, Public domain · Thomas Boston: Robert Scott, Public domain · John Black: William Henry Worthington, Public domain · Thomas M'Crie: Sir John Watson Gordon, Public domain · Robert Ainslie: Professor Wilson. 1874, Public domain
The nearest towns and villages, from National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities. See them on the map →
That is 20.7 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size.
Band D council tax in Duns is £1,619 for 2026–27, less than in 95% 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 £167,200, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 85th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in Scottish Borders, Scotland
Duns is a locality of 3,117 people, in the Scottish Borders 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.