Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Home to 11,772 people, this town lies in West Lothian, Scotland.
Whitburn’s best grade is for cost of living (A+): a typical home costs £155,700 and rent runs £908 a month. Where it falls short is health — life expectancy is 75.3 for men and 79.6 for women. Hazard risk is weaker too — 2.2% of homes face a high or medium risk of river or sea flooding. Band D council tax is £1,628.
Figures: prices, HM Land Registry, the last three years · life expectancy, ONS · flood risk, SEPA. Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Whitburn has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
The 3 things Whitburn 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 Whitburn is from typical. American towns are graded separately.
Police Scotland doesn’t publish street-level crime, so Whitburn has no Safety Grade and, without it, no overall grade. The other subjects are graded below.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Historic Environment Scotland lists 2 buildings inside Whitburn’s locality, 1 of them in the top category.
Explore the history →Data highlights are ordered by what stands out in Whitburn.
Typical age in Whitburn: 40.7, the median. 17% are under 15, lower than West Lothian’s towns (18%) yet higher than Scotland’s towns (15%). Aged 15 to 24: just over one in ten residents.
51% women, 49% men
About an even split. Across Scotland, 51% of residents are women.
| Whitburn | West Lothian | Scotland | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 15 | 17% | 18% | 15% |
| 15–24 | 11% | 11% | 12% |
| 25–44 | 28% | 26% | 26% |
| 45–64 | 27% | 29% | 27% |
| 65+ | 18% | 17% | 19% |
| No qualifications | 22% | 16% | 17% |
| Apprenticeship | 8.1% | 7.3% | 7.5% |
| Highers or similar | 9.6% | 11% | 11% |
| Degree level | 19% | 28% | 32% |
Scotland’s Census 2022 · West Lothian and Scotland: all residents of their towns · OGL
Of its 6 schools, two are shown below, each with the reason. Between them, four primaries and one secondary teach 1,806 pupils in Whitburn.
| School | Level | Pupils | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whitdale Primary SchoolLargest primary schoolPrimary | Primary | 298 | – |
| Whitburn AcademyLargest secondary schoolSecondary | Secondary | 891 | A |
At the census, 27% of people here had a disability, above West Lothian’s towns (24%) and Scotland’s towns (24%) alike. Self-reported good health: three quarters of Whitburn’s residents. 8.7% of residents report bad or very bad health.
| Census 2022 | Whitburn | West Lothian | Scotland |
|---|---|---|---|
| Good or very good health | 75% | 79% | 78% |
| Bad or very bad health | 8.7% | 7% | 7.2% |
| Activities limited (health or disability) | 27% | 24% | 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.
Social renters account for just over a third of households. 54% of households own their home, below West Lothian’s towns (63%) and Scotland’s towns (60%) alike. 571 sales in Whitburn’s data zones from 2023 to 2025 make up the median of £155,700.
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; 29% of workers were mainly at home, and shares here are of those who travelled.
There are 0.5 jobs in Whitburn for each resident in work. Just over four in five commuters drove, higher than both West Lothian’s towns (78%) and Scotland’s towns (70%). For 23% of commuters, work was under 5 km away.
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: 1 Category A, 1 Category B.
Historic Environment Scotland list, October 2026 · OGL
Museums, castles, gardens and days out in and near Whitburn. Best known first.
19 notable people were born in Whitburn.
Leon Jackson: The original uploader was DavidDjJohnson at English Wikipedia. (Original text: David Johnson), CC BY 3.0 · John Lambie: Lolzagnock, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Danny Lennon: Mclview9, CC0
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whitburn | 11,772 | — | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Armadale | 12,590 | 2.3 | — | A | — | D |
| Harthill | 2,613 | 2.4 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Fauldhouse | 4,587 | 2.5 | — | A+ | — | D− |
| Blackburn | 5,263 | 2.7 | — | A | — | D− |
| Bathgate | 22,229 | 3.2 | — | A+ | — | C− |
| West Calder | 3,405 | 4.7 | — | A | — | D |
| Shotts | 8,794 | 5.2 | — | 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.
GCSE results beat 90% of towns in England (Department for Education, Attainment 8).
Band D council tax in Whitburn 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 £155,700, against £277,000 in the typical town in England and Wales. On cost of living it is the 114th most affordable of 296 Scottish towns.
Town in West Lothian, Scotland
Whitburn is a locality of 11,772 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.