Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town in West Lothian, Scotland, home to 3,217 people.
Housing is within reach: homes sell for a median £180,600, about 3.8 times local household income. Add schools to its strengths: school leavers’ results beat 85% of Scottish towns. 21 buildings are listed here, 3 at Category A. A Band D home pays £1,628 in council tax.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years. Mid Calder has no Safety Grade, because Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, and so no overall grade. Its other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Mid Calder 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 Mid Calder is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Mid Calder 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 →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 21 buildings inside Mid Calder’s locality, 3 of them in the top category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Mid Calder.
Social housing holds 5% of households, below West Lothian’s towns (25%) and Scotland’s towns (24%) alike. Private tenants account for 11% of households. Behind the median of £180,600: 170 sales in Mid Calder’s data zones, 2023 to 2025.
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.
Its one school is below. The town’s primary school has 194 pupils.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mid Calder Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 194 | – |
Scotland’s Census was taken on 20 March 2022, a year after England and Wales’s lockdown census; 35% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
Working from home was the norm for 35% of workers at the census. Work in town: 1% of resident commuters. There are 0.1 jobs in Mid Calder for each resident in work. Nearly four in five commuters drove, close to West Lothian’s towns (78%) and above Scotland’s towns (70%).
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.
Mid Calder’s listed buildings include Calder House, Category A. For its size, Mid Calder has 65 listed buildings per 10,000 residents, higher than both West Lothian’s towns (6) and Scotland’s towns (22). At the top of the list, 3 are Category A and 7 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
84% of Mid Calder’s residents described their health as good or very good at the census, above both West Lothian’s towns (79%) and Scotland’s towns (78%). A disability affects a fifth of people here. Women here live to 85.1 on average and men to 80.1 (2020–24).
| Census 2022 | Mid Calder | West Lothian | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 84% | 79% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 4% | 7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 20% | 24% | 24% |
Scotland’s Census 2022, general health and disability · Public Health Scotland life expectancy by intermediate zone, 2020–24 · OGL · A young population flatters these answers, which are not age-adjusted; the Health Grade instead uses measures that allow for age, such as life expectancy and early deaths.
Degrees are held by 33% of adults, higher than West Lothian’s towns (28%) and near Scotland’s towns (32%). The 15-to-24 age group makes up 9.4% of residents. The middle age in Mid Calder is 49.1.
52% women, 48% men
About 94 men for every 100 women. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Mid Calder | West Lothian | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 14% | 18% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 9.4% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 22% | 26% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 35% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 21% | 17% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 12% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 7.7% | 7.3% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 13% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 33% | 28% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · West Lothian and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Mid Calder. Best known first.
Art galleryJupiter Artland3.5 km outside town, to the northeastHeritage railwayHeritage railwayAlmond Valley Light Railway3 km outside town, to the westMuseumMuseumMuseum of the Scottish Shale Oil Industry2.9 km outside town, to the westZooZooFive Sisters Zoo4.7 km outside town, to the southwestMuseumMuseumThe Wee Museum of Memory700 m outside town, to the westPhotos: each place’s Wikidata image, from Wikimedia Commons under the licence below (our copy, resized).
21 listed buildings in Mid Calder, 3 of them in the top category.
Calder House: Photo: Paul Thomson · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Black Bull Inn 6-4A-4 Market Street: Photo: james denham · CC BY-SA 2.0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid Calder | 3,217 | — | — | A | — | B |
| East Calder | 7,249 | 1.3 | — | B | — | C+ |
| Livingston | 55,798 | 1.5 | — | A | — | D |
| Polbeth | 2,595 | 3.1 | — | A | — | D− |
| Broxburn | 15,414 | 3.1 | — | A | — | D |
| West Calder | 3,405 | 4.1 | — | A | — | D |
| Winchburgh | 4,290 | 5 | — | B+ | — | C+ |
| Blackburn | 5,263 | 5.3 | — | 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.
That is 2.7 times the typical town in England and Wales for its size. Its Category A buildings include Calder House.
Band D council tax in Mid Calder 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.
GCSE results beat 85% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8). One state school is inside the town; places are handled by the local council.
Homes cost less than in most UK towns: the median sale over three years was £180,600, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 127th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in West Lothian, Scotland
Mid Calder is a locality of 3,217 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.
