Dundee
City · 149,880 people live here · 21 areas
Check Local Score for Dundee as a whole: 54, fair, better than 1 in 10 cities. 60 is typical for the country.
Summary · written from the figures for Dundee
Tenement flats and low-rise blocks dominate the skyline here, the kind of solid Victorian sandstone you get across east-coast Scottish cities, with student lets and first-time buyer flats doing the heavy lifting on any given street. It attracts a mix you notice quickly: university students, young professionals who grew up nearby and never quite left, and a meaningful share of older residents who've been in the same close for decades. The energy is workaday rather than polished — this isn't a city dressing itself up for visitors.
The numbers behind daily life read as comfortably average with a couple of standout points. Median house prices sit around £141,000, which is well below what you'd pay across most of the UK, and the five-year direction on prices is described as improving even though the most recent year's movement has been modest — worth knowing if you're buying now expecting quick movement rather than a slow climb. Council tax band D costs more here than the Scottish average, a detail that surprises people given the housing is cheaper than the national picture might suggest. On deprivation, Dundee sits in the fourth decile nationally on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, and third on income — meaning this is a city with real pockets of hardship alongside its more comfortable streets, not a uniformly affluent or struggling place. With 41 schools serving the city, there's plenty of choice, though the absence of Ofsted-style ratings here (Scotland doesn't use them) means you'll want to look at individual school reputations rather than 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 Dundee 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 Dundee, north at the top. Scores are out of 100; 60 is typical for the country.
Ardler
57Ranked 1 of 21 by overall. Strongest on environment (82), weakest on transport (31).
Is Dundee a good place to live?
Dundee scores 54/100 overall, which the scorecard rates as fair — 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 Dundee in Scotland, each measured against the national average.
Summary of Dundee
Tenement flats and low-rise blocks dominate the skyline here, the kind of solid Victorian sandstone you get across east-coast Scottish cities, with student lets and first-time buyer flats doing the heavy lifting on any given street. It attracts a mix you notice quickly: university students, young professionals who grew up nearby and never quite left, and a meaningful share of older residents who've been in the same close for decades. The energy is workaday rather than polished — this isn't a city dressing itself up for visitors.
The numbers behind daily life read as comfortably average with a couple of standout points. Median house prices sit around £141,000, which is well below what you'd pay across most of the UK, and the five-year direction on prices is described as improving even though the most recent year's movement has been modest — worth knowing if you're buying now expecting quick movement rather than a slow climb. Council tax band D costs more here than the Scottish average, a detail that surprises people given the housing is cheaper than the national picture might suggest. On deprivation, Dundee sits in the fourth decile nationally on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, and third on income — meaning this is a city with real pockets of hardship alongside its more comfortable streets, not a uniformly affluent or struggling place. With 41 schools serving the city, there's plenty of choice, though the absence of Ofsted-style ratings here (Scotland doesn't use them) means you'll want to look at individual school reputations rather than a single grade.