CowieStirling council area
A town in the Stirling council area, Scotland, home to 2,708 people.
Is Cowie a good place to live?
Cowie’s best grade is for cost of living (A+) — homes sell for a median £149,500, about 2.9 times local household income. Health lags: life expectancy 76.7 for men, 78.4 for women. Pupils here do less well than most: school leavers’ results beat 12% of Scottish towns. Natural hazards are less of a worry than in most UK towns (A).
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Cowie without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
What makes Cowie stand out
The 3 things Cowie does most differently from other towns.
How Cowie grades
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Cowie is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Cowie without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Its other subjects still get grades, below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The data
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Cowie.
Degrees are less common in Cowie than in Stirling council area’s towns or across Scotland’s towns: 14% of adults
Children under 15 count for nearly a fifth of the people here. People aged 15 to 24 make up just over a tenth of the town, below Stirling council area’s towns (17%) and close to Scotland’s towns (12%). The age that splits Cowie in two is 38.1.
Ages · share of residents
Qualifications · residents 16 and older
Women and men · all residents
52% women, 48% men
About 93 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Cowie | Stirling council area | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 19% | 14% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 12% | 17% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 27% | 23% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 26% | 27% |
| 65+ | 14% | 19% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 23% | 13% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 10% | 6.2% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 12% | 14% | 11% |
| Degree level | 14% | 38% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · Stirling council area and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
On exam results, Cowie’s schools trail 88% of Scottish towns
Below is one of its 2 schools, and why it was picked. Between them, two primaries teach 288 pupils in Cowie.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cowie Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 149 | – |
Private renting is less common in Cowie than in Stirling council area’s towns or across Scotland’s towns: 5%
Social housing holds just over a third of households. Owners make up 57% of households, lower than both Stirling council area’s towns (63%) and Scotland’s towns (60%). Only one of the 7 towns in the Stirling council area costs less to buy into than Cowie, whose median sale is £149,500.
Median sale price · 2023 to 2025, at early-2025 prices
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.
Lifespans in Cowie run shorter than in 94% of UK towns
7.1% of residents described their health as bad or very bad, higher than Stirling council area’s towns (5.8%) and near Scotland’s towns (7.2%). Asked at the census, 78% of residents of Cowie said they were in good or very good health. A disability affects nearly a quarter of people locally.
| Census 2022 | Cowie | Stirling council area | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 78% | 81% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 7.1% | 5.8% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 24% | 22% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · The census answers take no account of age, so a young town looks healthier; the Health Grade relies on age-adjusted measures, life expectancy and early deaths among them.
No listed buildings in Cowie
The heritage lists give each building’s grade but not its age, so we don’t say which is oldest.
Historic Environment Scotland’s list has no building inside Cowie’s locality.
Listed buildings by grade · Historic Environment Scotland
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Walking, cycling and public transport carry fewer commuters in Cowie than in Stirling council area’s towns or Scotland’s towns: 15%
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.
Working mainly from home: nearly a quarter of workers, lower than both Stirling council area’s towns (34%) and Scotland’s towns (31%). 84% of commuters drove to work at the census. For 25% of commuters, work was under 5 km away.
How commuters got to work · March 2022
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Cambuskenneth Abbey and 5 more in and around Cowie
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Cowie. Best known first.
CastlePlean Castle1.7 km outside town, to the southeastMuseumMuseum · National Trust for ScotlandThe Battle of Bannockburn Visitor Centre3.9 km outside town, to the westMuseumMuseum · National Trust for ScotlandThe Dunmore Pineapple4.4 km outside town, to the eastAttractionAttractionGrave of James III, King of Scots5 km outside town, to the northwestMuseumMuseumPolmaise Colliery Museum1.7 km outside town, to the northPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Photo credits (1)
- Plean Castle: Derek Ferris, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Everything we know about Cowie
Cowie’s neighbours
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cowie | 2,708 | — | — | A+ | — | D |
| Fallin | 2,769 | 1.6 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Bannockburn | 6,587 | 2 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Alloa | 14,689 | 3.6 | — | A− | — | D |
| Stirling | 38,590 | 3.7 | — | A+ | — | D |
| Tullibody | 8,515 | 3.8 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Larbert | 12,688 | 4 | — | B− | — | C |
| Dunipace | 2,563 | 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.
Questions about Cowie
Are schools in Cowie good?
Cowie has 2 state schools; places are handled by the local council.
Is Cowie expensive to live in?
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £149,500, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 50th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
About Cowie
Town in Stirling, Scotland
Cowie is a locality of 2,708 people, in the Stirling 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
- Population
- 2,708 (Census 2022)
- Council
- Stirling
- Nation
- Scotland
- Area
- 0.4 sq mi (1.2 km²)
- NRS code
- S52000160
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.