Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
The town has 5,263 residents and lies in West Lothian, Scotland. A Band D home pays £1,628 in council tax.
Blackburn’s best grade is for cost of living: the median home sold for £172,200, 3.6 years of area income. It also does well on schools (A) — school leavers’ results beat 91% of Scottish towns. Residents’ health trails most towns: life expectancy is 74.4 for men and 77.3 for women. 16% of adults have a degree-level qualification.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS. Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Blackburn without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
The 3 things Blackburn 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 Blackburn is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland publishes no street-level crime, which leaves Blackburn without a Safety Grade or an overall grade. Every other subject still has a grade below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 2 buildings inside Blackburn’s locality, 2 of them in the second category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Blackburn.
16% are under 15, lower than West Lothian’s towns (18%) and near Scotland’s towns (15%). Ages in Blackburn split evenly at 42.4: half are older, half younger. Young adults of 15 to 24 are 12% of the population.
50% women, 50% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Blackburn | West Lothian | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 16% | 18% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 12% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 25% | 26% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 28% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 19% | 17% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 25% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.9% | 7.3% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 8.9% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 16% | 28% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · West Lothian and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Blackburn’s three primaries and one secondary have 1,491 pupils between them. Two of its 6 schools are below, each with the reason it’s listed. St Kentigern's Academy’s results beat 85% of schools in Scotland like it.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Murrayfield Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 183 | – |
| St Kentigern's AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 1,065 | A |
Asked at the census, 70% of residents of Blackburn said they were in good or very good health. Nearly a third of residents have a disability, above West Lothian’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%) alike.
| Census 2022 | Blackburn | West Lothian | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 70% | 79% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 12% | 7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 32% | 24% | 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.
Owners make up nearly half of households, below both West Lothian’s towns (63%) and Scotland’s towns (60%). Private renters make up 6% of households. 177 sales in Blackburn’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £172,200.
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.
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 8% of its commuters stay in Blackburn for work. Jobs per working resident: 0.4. Working mainly from home: 28% of workers, below West Lothian’s towns (33%) and Scotland’s towns (31%) alike. By car: that was how 80% of commuters travelled at the census.
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.
Historic Environment Scotland’s list holds 2 listed buildings inside its locality: 2 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Blackburn. Best known first.
6 notable people were born in Blackburn.
Angela Constance: Scottish Government, CC BY 2.0 · Steven Craig: coliedog mac, CC BY 2.0 · Alexander Young: photographer unknown, Honolulu Advertiser, Public domain
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blackburn | 5,263 | — | — | A | — | D− |
| Bathgate | 22,229 | 1.7 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| West Calder | 3,405 | 2.6 | — | A | — | D |
| Whitburn | 11,772 | 2.7 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Polbeth | 2,595 | 2.9 | — | A | — | D− |
| Armadale | 12,590 | 3.3 | — | A | — | D |
| Livingston | 55,798 | 4.1 | — | A | — | D |
| Fauldhouse | 4,587 | 4.5 | — | 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.
At the 2022 Census, 12% of Blackburn’s 5,263 residents were 15 to 24 and 19% were 65 or over, against 12% and 19% across Scotland’s towns.
GCSE results beat 91% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8).
Band D council tax in Blackburn is £1,628 for 2026–27, less than in 94% 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 £172,200, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 121st most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in West Lothian, Scotland
Blackburn is a locality of 5,263 people, in the West Lothian 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.