FaifleyWest Dunbartonshire
A Band D home pays £1,682 in council tax. Population 4,785: a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland.
Is Faifley a good place to live?
Faifley’s strongest subject is walkability (A+) — a third of commuters walk, cycle or take public transport. Prices are modest for what you get: the median home sold for £109,900, 2.8 years of area income. Health outcomes fall short of most towns: life expectancy is 75.3 for men and 78.7 for women. Hazard risk is lower than in most UK towns: 0.1% of homes at high or medium risk of flooding from rivers or the sea.
Figures: commuting, Census 2022 · prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Faifley has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
What makes Faifley stand out
The 3 things Faifley does most differently from other towns.
How Faifley grades
Each subject compared with the 2,160 UK towns with an overall grade (schools within Scotland), ordered by how far Faifley is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Faifley has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
The data
Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Faifley.
A town of families: 22% of people in Faifley are under 15, more than in West Dunbartonshire’s towns and across Scotland’s towns
People 65 and over make up just over a tenth of the town, below both West Dunbartonshire’s towns (20%) and Scotland’s towns (19%). The median resident of Faifley is 36.2 years old. Young adults of 15 to 24 are 12% of the population.
Ages · share of residents
Qualifications · residents 16 and older
Women and men · all residents
54% women, 46% men
About 87 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Faifley | West Dunbartonshire | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 22% | 16% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 12% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 28% | 24% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 25% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 12% | 20% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 23% | 21% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.4% | 9.8% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 9.6% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 15% | 22% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · West Dunbartonshire and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
On exam results, Faifley’s schools beat 73% of Scottish towns
Below is one of its 2 schools, and why it was picked. Faifley’s two primaries have 406 pupils between them.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| St Joseph's Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 230 | – |
Lifespans in Faifley run shorter than in 97% of UK towns
Self-reported good health: nearly three quarters of Faifley’s residents. A disability affects 28% of people here. At the census, 8.9% of residents said their health was bad or very bad, about level with West Dunbartonshire’s towns (9%) and above Scotland’s towns (7.2%).
| Census 2022 | Faifley | West Dunbartonshire | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 74% | 75% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 8.9% | 9% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 28% | 28% | 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.
More people aged 16 to 64 in Faifley claim unemployment benefits than in West Dunbartonshire’s towns or Scotland’s towns: 4.3%
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.
About 3% of its commuters stay in Faifley for work. For every resident in work, Faifley has 0.2 jobs.
How commuters got to work · March 2022
Scotland’s Census 2022 (NRS), method of travel and distance to work · DWP claimant count · OGL
Social housing is more common in Faifley than in West Dunbartonshire’s towns or across Scotland’s towns, at 58% of households
Households that own their home make up 35%. 5% rent privately, lower than both West Dunbartonshire’s towns (8%) and Scotland’s towns (13%). Only one of the 8 towns in West Dunbartonshire costs less to buy into than Faifley, whose median sale is £109,900.
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.
No listed buildings in Faifley
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 Faifley’s locality.
Listed buildings by grade · Historic Environment Scotland
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Clydebank Museum and Art Gallery and 4 more in and around Faifley
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Faifley. Best known first.
MuseumClydebank Museum and Art Gallery2.7 km outside town, to the southArt galleryArt galleryThe Lillie Art Gallery4.4 km outside town, to the eastAttractionAttractionAuchentoshan Distillery2.1 km outside town, to the westAttractionAttractionTitan Crane3.1 km outside town, to the southArt galleryArt galleryWoodland Art Gallery4.7 km outside town, to the southPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
Photo credits (1)
- Clydebank Museum and Art Gallery: Darrin Antrobus, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Everything we know about Faifley
Faifley’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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Faifley | 4,785 | — | — | A− | — | D− |
| Duntocher and Hardgate | 6,573 | 0.8 | — | B+ | — | C− |
| Clydebank | 26,220 | 1.4 | — | A− | — | D− |
| Bearsden | 28,507 | 2.4 | — | B− | — | A |
| Bowling and Old Kilpatrick | 4,761 | 2.5 | — | B+ | — | C |
| Milngavie | 12,758 | 2.9 | — | A− | — | B |
| Erskine | 14,857 | 2.9 | — | A | — | C− |
| Renfrew | 23,812 | 3.8 | — | 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 Faifley
Is Faifley expensive to live in?
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £109,900, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 233rd most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Who lives in Faifley?
At the 2022 Census, 12% of Faifley’s 4,785 residents were 15 to 24 and 12% were 65 or over, against 12% and 19% across Scotland’s towns.
How much is council tax in Faifley?
Band D council tax in Faifley is £1,682 for 2026–27, less than in 92% of UK towns (council, county, police and fire). Your own bill depends on your home’s band; check it on GOV.UK.
About Faifley
Town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland
Faifley is a locality of 4,785 people, in the West Dunbartonshire 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
- 4,785 (Census 2022)
- Council
- West Dunbartonshire
- Nation
- Scotland
- Area
- 0.4 sq mi (0.9 km²)
- NRS code
- S52000244
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.