Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 7,004 in Scottish Borders, Scotland.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Kelso 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 101st most affordable of 296 Scottish towns: median sale £180,900, 4.1 years of area income; rent £760 a month. Its weakest is health (C): life expectancy 78.6 for men, 81.1 for women.
The 3 things Kelso 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 Kelso is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Kelso has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 185 buildings inside Kelso’s locality, 10 of them in the top category, and 2 scheduled monuments.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Kelso.
Young adults of 15 to 24 are 9.3% of the population. 12% are under 15, lower than both Scottish Borders’ towns (15%) and Scotland’s towns (15%). Kelso has a median age of 53.4 years. Graduates make up a quarter of adults.
53% women, 47% men
About 90 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.
| Kelso | Scottish Borders | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 12% | 15% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.3% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 19% | 21% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 33% | 26% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 21% | 20% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 9.3% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 25% | 26% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Scottish Borders and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Below are two of its 3 schools, each with why it was picked. Between them, two primaries and one secondary teach 1,055 pupils in Kelso.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broomlands Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 282 | – |
| Kelso High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 551 | C |
376 sales in Kelso’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £180,900. Home ownership stands at 61% of households. Social housing holds just over a quarter of households, in line with Scottish Borders’ towns (27%) and Scotland’s towns (24%).
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; 24% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Unemployment benefit claims came to 3.4% of 16 to 64s in 2026, close to Scottish Borders’ towns (3.6%) and above Scotland’s towns (2.8%). Working from home was the norm for 24% of workers at the census. About 53% of its commuters stay in Kelso for work. 58% of commuters travelled under 5 km to work.
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
At the census, 6.3% of residents said their health was bad or very bad, near Scottish Borders’ towns (6.4%) and lower than Scotland’s towns (7.2%). A disability affects a quarter of people in Kelso. 78% of the town’s residents described their health as good or very good in 2022, against 78% across Scottish Borders’s towns.
| Census 2022 | Kelso | Scottish Borders | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 78% | 78% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 6.3% | 6.4% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 25% | 25% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Young towns look healthier on these answers, which aren’t adjusted for age; the Health Grade uses measures that are, 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.
Kelso’s listed buildings include the Abbey Row Kelso Old Parish Church, Category A. For its size, Kelso has 264 listed buildings per 10,000 residents. Of the town’s land, 16% lies in conservation areas, above Scottish Borders’ towns (8%) and Scotland’s towns (1%) alike.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Kelso. Best known first.
Abbey or priory · Historic Environment ScotlandKelso Abbeyin town
Historic houseFloors Castle800 m outside town, to the west
CastleRoxburgh Castle200 m outside town, to the westAttractionAttractionThe Horse Shoe (1460)in townAttractionAttractionKing James II Holly (1460)500 m outside town, to the westHistoric siteHistoric siteThomson's Monument1 km outside town, to the northPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
185 listed buildings in Kelso, 10 of them in the top category.
Roxburgh Street St John's Edenside and Ednam Church of Scotland: Photo: wfmillar · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Roxburgh Street Walton Hall, And Stable Wing: Photo: Mainlymazza · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mill Wynd, Kelso Mills, (John Hogarth Ltd): Photo: Victuallers · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Abbey Court, Ednam House Hotel, Boundary Walls, Gates and Gatepiers: Photo: Victuallers · CC BY-SA 4.0
39 notable people were born in Kelso.
Henry James Sumner Maine: Simon Baddeley, Public domain · Jennie Kidd Trout: Harris & Ewing, photographer, Public domain · William Fairbairn: William Fairbairn and William Pole, Public domain · Henry Oliver: Francis Dodd, Public domain · William Henry Ogilvie: John Kinmont MOIR (Life time: 1893-1958), Public domain
The nearest towns and villages, from National Records of Scotland’s 2022 localities. See them on the map →
That is 10.8 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Abbey Row Kelso Old Parish Church. It also has 2 scheduled monuments.
Band D council tax in Kelso 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 £180,900, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 101st most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in Scottish Borders, Scotland
Kelso is a locality of 7,004 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.