Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
The large town, home to 46,209 people, lies in South Ayrshire, Scotland. Band D council tax is £1,695.
Homes are affordable: a typical home costs £162,500 and rent runs £656 a month. Residents’ health trails most towns (D): life expectancy is 76 for men and 80.7 for women. The rest of its grades are middling: B− for schools and C+ for hazard risk. Its listed buildings number 411, with 16 at Category A.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Ayr has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Ayr is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Ayr has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The 3 things Ayr does most differently from other towns.
Historic Environment Scotland lists 411 buildings inside Ayr’s locality, 16 of them in the top category, and 4 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds 5 old photos and postcards going back to 1890.
411 listed buildings in Ayr, 16 of them in the top category.
Alloway (Off), Brig O'doon: Photo: August Schwerdfeger · CC BY 4.0 · Ayr Sheriff Court and Justice of the Peace Court, including boundary wall and gatepiers, 14 Wellington Square, Ayr: Photo: Iroberts696 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Kirk Port, Auld Kirk of Ayr, Church of Scotland: Photo: Iroberts696 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fort Street, Ayr Academy: Photo: Iroberts696 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Ayr.
2,875 sales in Ayr’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £162,500. Private renters make up 12% of households, between South Ayrshire’s towns (11%) and Scotland’s towns (13%). Just over a fifth of households live in social housing.
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.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forehill Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 463 | – |
| Belmont AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,163 | B |
Disability touches 28% of Ayr’s population. At the census, just over three quarters of people in Ayr called their health good or very good, about level with South Ayrshire’s towns (76%) and below Scotland’s towns (78%). 8% of residents report bad or very bad health.
| Census 2022 | Ayr | South Ayrshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 76% | 76% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 8% | 7.7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 28% | 27% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · Because the census answers ignore age, a younger population lifts them; that is why the Health Grade is built on age-adjusted measures like life expectancy and early deaths.
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.
At the census, 77% of commuters went by car. Of the commuters living in Ayr, 41% work in the town itself. This South Ayrshire town counts 1 jobs per working resident. Short trips to work, under 5 km: 49%, above both South Ayrshire’s towns (42%) 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.
Of Ayr’s land, 7% lies in conservation areas, lower than South Ayrshire’s towns (8%) yet higher than Scotland’s towns (1%). Its listed buildings include Alloway (Off), Brig O'doon, Category A. Category B covers 192 of them, Category A 16.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
People aged 15 to 24 make up a tenth of the town, higher than South Ayrshire’s towns (9.7%) yet lower than Scotland’s towns (12%). Residents of Ayr have a median age of 48.4. Under 15: 14% of residents.
52% women, 48% men
About 92 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.
| Ayr | South Ayrshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 14% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 10% | 9.7% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 21% | 20% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 26% | 27% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 18% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.7% | 8% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 31% | 31% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · South Ayrshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Ayr. Best known first.
CathedralAyr Cathedralin town
Museum · National Trust for ScotlandRobert Burns Birthplace Museumin town
CathedralGood Shepherd Cathedral, Ayrin town
CastleGreenan Castle100 m outside town, to the southwest
CastleSundrum Castle4.5 km outside town, to the east
CastleDunduff Castle4.6 km outside town, to the southwestPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
140 notable people were born in Ayr.
Drew McIntyre: Diego Serrano, CC BY 2.0 · Abdalqadir as-Sufi: The original uploader was JoeSanchez at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0 · Alan McInally: Jonesy702, CC BY 4.0 · Stuart Martin: Gabriel Hutchinson, CC BY-SA 4.0
Large town in South Ayrshire, Scotland
Ayr is a locality of 46,209 people, in the South Ayrshire 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
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ayr | 46,209 | — | — | A+ | — | D |
| Prestwick | 14,550 | 2.6 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Drongan | 3,063 | 6.3 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Troon | 15,271 | 6.7 | — | A+ | — | C |
| Maybole | 4,333 | 7.5 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Dundonald | 2,579 | 8.5 | — | A | — | C− |
| Mauchline | 3,809 | 10 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Dreghorn | 3,362 | 11 | — | A+ | — | D |
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.
That is 3.6 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Alloway (Off), Brig O'doon. It also has 4 scheduled monuments.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £162,500, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 18th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Band D council tax in Ayr is £1,695 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.
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.