Aberdeen
City · 231,780 people live here · 36 areas
Check Local Score for Aberdeen as a whole: 62, good, better than 7 in 10 cities. 60 is typical for the country.
Summary · written from the figures for Aberdeen
Granite terraces still dominate the streetscape here, that distinctive grey stone giving even ordinary residential roads a solid, formal look, and it's a working city first — oil and gas offices, university buildings, harbourside industry — rather than a place styled for visitors. You'll notice the mix on any main road: professionals in their thirties and forties, a substantial student population, and the kind of granite tenement flats that have housed generations of Aberdonians without much needing to change.
The numbers back up that sense of a settled, working population — median age of 38.8 is younger than the Scotland-wide average, which tracks with the university and the offshore industry both pulling in people of working age. Housing here is the real headline: a median price around £134,500 sits well below what you'd expect for a city of this size, and against a national picture where deprivation is measured decile by decile, Aberdeen's decile 7 places it comfortably among the less deprived parts of Scotland. Council tax band D bills run slightly above the national median, a reminder that affordability here is about purchase price more than ongoing costs. With 62 schools across the city, there's real choice for families, though the absence of Ofsted-style ratings in Scotland means you're better off asking around locally than relying on a single grade.
Pick what matters to you and the areas reorder. Choose an area to see why it ranks where it does, then open its report. Or see the report for Aberdeen as a whole, with every figure and the map.
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Areas ranked overall
Areas are laid out roughly as they sit in Aberdeen, north at the top. Scores are out of 100; 60 is typical for the country.
Footdee
68Ranked 1 of 36 by overall. Strongest on food & drink (94), weakest on transport (31).
Is Aberdeen a good place to live?
Aberdeen scores 62/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as good — 60 is typical for the country.
It stands out for environment (73).
It scores lowest on transport (31).
Scores come from official data on safety, schools, transport, prices, health, food & drink and the local environment, for Aberdeen in Scotland, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Aberdeen
Granite terraces still dominate the streetscape here, that distinctive grey stone giving even ordinary residential roads a solid, formal look, and it's a working city first — oil and gas offices, university buildings, harbourside industry — rather than a place styled for visitors. You'll notice the mix on any main road: professionals in their thirties and forties, a substantial student population, and the kind of granite tenement flats that have housed generations of Aberdonians without much needing to change.
The numbers back up that sense of a settled, working population — median age of 38.8 is younger than the Scotland-wide average, which tracks with the university and the offshore industry both pulling in people of working age. Housing here is the real headline: a median price around £134,500 sits well below what you'd expect for a city of this size, and against a national picture where deprivation is measured decile by decile, Aberdeen's decile 7 places it comfortably among the less deprived parts of Scotland. Council tax band D bills run slightly above the national median, a reminder that affordability here is about purchase price more than ongoing costs. With 62 schools across the city, there's real choice for families, though the absence of Ofsted-style ratings in Scotland means you're better off asking around locally than relying on a single grade.
Green space is where Aberdeen quietly overperforms — 520 sites and over 1,600 hectares of it, which for a city this size is a lot of room to walk off a Sunday roast or let a dog run. The overall character grade lands at a solid B+, and digging into the sub-grades tells the real story: the environment grade is the standout at A, connectivity, housing and nightlife all sit at a healthy B+, and it's safety and health that trail behind at B — not a bad mark by any means, but the one soft spot in an otherwise strong pattern. Full-fibre broadband reaches nearly 92% of the city, which matters if you're working from home some of the week, and population density is notably lower than the national average, so it doesn't have that shoulder-to-shoulder feel some Scottish cities carry.