Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Some 55,171 people live in this large town, in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Hamilton’s strongest is cost of living: homes sell for a median £168,000, about 3.6 times local household income. Health lags (D): life expectancy 76 for men, 80.3 for women. Its remaining grades are unremarkable: B for walkability and B− for hazard risk. Council tax at Band D comes to £1,468.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · commuting, Census 2022 · flood risk, SEPA. Hamilton 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.
The 3 things Hamilton 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 Hamilton is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Hamilton 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 →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 151 buildings inside Hamilton’s locality, 13 of them in the top category, and 3 scheduled monuments.
The archive holds 2 old photos and postcards going back to 1882.
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Hamilton. Best known first.
MuseumLow Parks Museumin town
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandBothwell Castle1.9 km outside town, to the northwest
CathedralMotherwell Cathedral2 km outside town, to the northeast
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandCadzow Castle (ruin)700 m outside town, to the east
Museum · National Trust for ScotlandDavid Livingstone Museum800 m outside town, to the north
CastleDalzell House1.2 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 Hamilton.
11% rent privately, above South Lanarkshire’s towns (10%) but below Scotland’s towns (13%). Behind the median of £168,000: 3,407 sales in Hamilton’s data zones, 2023 to 2025. Private rents average £839 a month across the South Lanarkshire council area.
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.
Some 8,293 pupils attend Hamilton’s 17 primaries and three secondaries. Below are three of its 21 schools, each with why it was picked.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Woodside Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 495 | – |
| Holy Cross High SchoolLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,481 | B+ |
| Hamilton Grammar SchoolTop results in townSecondary | Secondary | 1,294 | A− |
Nearly one in ten residents described their health as bad or very bad, above both South Lanarkshire’s towns (7.9%) and Scotland’s towns (7.2%). Asked at the census, 77% of residents of Hamilton said they were in good or very good health. A disability affects 25% of people in the town.
| Census 2022 | Hamilton | South Lanarkshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 77% | 77% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 8.6% | 7.9% | 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 · No age adjustment applies to these census answers, which flatter younger towns; the Health Grade’s measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them, do allow for age.
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 32% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Just over a third of commuters travelled under 5 km, higher than South Lanarkshire’s towns (31%) yet lower than Scotland’s towns (44%). At the census, four in five commuters went by car. About 24% of its commuters stay in Hamilton for work. In 2026, 3.1% of 16 to 64s were claiming unemployment benefits.
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.
Hamilton’s listed buildings include Almada Street, Lanark County Buildings, Category A. Category B covers 67 of them, Category A 13. Also worth knowing: 3 scheduled monuments lie in the town.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Half the people of Hamilton are older than 42.6. Graduates make up 28% of adults.
51% women, 49% men
About 95 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Hamilton | South Lanarkshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 26% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 19% | 20% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 20% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.8% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 28% | 28% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · South Lanarkshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
151 listed buildings in Hamilton, 13 of them in the top category.
129 Muir Street, Low Parks Museum, Incorporating Former Crawford House with Assembly Room and Former Hamilton Palace Riding School, Including Remnant Wall and Gatepier to Se Corner of Site: Photo: Supergolden · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Almada Street, Lanark County Buildings: Photo: Supergolden · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Parish Church Ann Street: Photo: Unknown photographer · CC BY-SA 2.5 · Bothwell Road, Bandstand at Hamilton Public Park: Photo: Graemedick · CC BY-SA 4.0
144 notable people were born in Hamilton.
Jock Stein: Anefo, CC0 · Lewis Ferguson: Bryan Berlin, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Barry Ferguson: Struway, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Nicol Williamson: IPPA photographer, CC BY 4.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hamilton | 55,171 | — | — | A+ | — | D |
| Blantyre | 16,534 | 2.2 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Bothwell | 7,002 | 2.6 | — | A | — | C+ |
| Motherwell | 33,021 | 3 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Bellshill | 19,488 | 3.7 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Uddingston | 6,181 | 3.7 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Larkhall | 15,319 | 4.1 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Viewpark | 15,832 | 4.2 | — | 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.
Band D council tax in Hamilton is £1,468 for 2026–27, less than in 99% 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 £168,000, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 89th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
GCSE results beat 68% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8).
Large town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland
Hamilton is a locality of 55,171 people, in the South Lanarkshire 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.