Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
The town has 15,319 residents and lies in South Lanarkshire, Scotland.
Cost of living is its strong suit (A+) — a typical home costs £175,000 and rent runs £839 a month. Health is a weak point: men here can expect to live to 75, women to 80.6. Natural hazards weigh less here than in most UK towns: 0.1% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding. Council tax at Band D comes to £1,468.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Larkhall without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Larkhall 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 Larkhall is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Larkhall without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 15 buildings inside Larkhall’s locality, 3 of them in the second category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Larkhall.
The middle age in Larkhall is 44.6. People 65 and over make up just over a fifth of the town, above South Lanarkshire’s towns (20%) and Scotland’s towns (19%) alike. Young adults of 15 to 24 are 11% of the population.
53% women, 47% men
About 88 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Larkhall | South Lanarkshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 15% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 10% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 24% | 25% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 28% | 27% |
| 65+ | 21% | 20% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 24% | 18% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 8.4% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 11% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 19% | 28% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · South Lanarkshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Some 2,397 pupils attend Larkhall’s six primaries and one secondary. Two of its 7 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machanhill Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 358 | – |
| Larkhall AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,195 | C |
9% rent privately, near South Lanarkshire’s towns (10%) and lower than Scotland’s towns (13%). Behind the median of £175,000: 942 sales in Larkhall’s data zones, 2023 to 2025. The owner-occupied share of households is 65%.
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.
28% of residents in Larkhall live with a disability. At the census, 73% of people in Larkhall called their health good or very good, below both South Lanarkshire’s towns (77%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). Poor health, by residents’ own account, affects nearly a tenth of the town.
| Census 2022 | Larkhall | South Lanarkshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 73% | 77% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 9.4% | 7.9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 28% | 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; 28% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Four in five commuters drove, near South Lanarkshire’s towns (79%) and higher than Scotland’s towns (70%). The census counted 28% of workers working mainly from home. Also worth knowing: the 2026 claimant rate among 16 to 64s was 3.3%.
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 3 of them. Larkhall has 10 listed buildings for every 10,000 residents, below South Lanarkshire’s towns (11) and Scotland’s towns (22) alike.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Larkhall. Best known first.
CathedralMotherwell Cathedral4.2 km outside town, to the north
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandCraignethan Castle4.5 km outside town, to the southeast
Castle · Historic Environment ScotlandCadzow Castle (ruin)2.5 km outside town, to the northwest
CastleDalzell House2.1 km outside town, to the north
MuseumLow Parks Museum4.6 km outside town, to the northwest
MuseumMotherwell Heritage Centre4.2 km outside town, to the northPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
47 notable people were born in Larkhall.
Hugh Grant: Janine Moraes, CC BY 3.0 br · Gus Macdonald: GK.bh, CC BY 2.0 · Fred Craig: Thebees1889, CC BY-SA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Larkhall | 15,319 | — | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Stonehouse | 5,591 | 3 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Wishaw | 30,190 | 3.3 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Law | 3,293 | 3.6 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| Motherwell | 33,021 | 3.6 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Hamilton | 55,171 | 4.1 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Carfin | 4,427 | 4.6 | — | A | — | D |
| Kirkmuirhill and Blackwood | 4,351 | 5 | — | A+ | — | 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.
Band D council tax in Larkhall 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 £175,000, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 95th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland
Larkhall is a locality of 15,319 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.