Helmsdale has a population of 637, making it the 53rd largest place in Highland. In 2005 the World Gazetteer recorded 637, a rise of 0.0% since.
Year-by-year official estimates for the wider area: Highland population trends, 2001–2024.
Helmsdale in context
Distances are straight-line from the settlement's recorded coordinates. The 10 km figure sums the recorded places within that radius, so it describes how built-up the surroundings are rather than people per square kilometre.
The population, measured on a real boundary
| What you mean | Population | Source |
|---|---|---|
| East Helmsdale locality NRS census geography: the continuously built-up Helmsdale | 546 | Census 2022 |
| Helmsdale (GeoNames record) the figure in this page's heading; boundary unstated | 637 | GeoNames |
The locality figure is Scotland's Census 2022, summed over the Scottish Postcode Directory's own postcodes for this locality; across all of Scotland that method lands within 601 people of the national census total. Where the two rows disagree, the census locality is the figure to quote.
Food and drink, from the register
| Category | Count | Per 10,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurants and cafés | 4 | 73.3 |
| Hotels and B&Bs | 1 | 18.3 |
Registered food establishments in the East Helmsdale locality, from the Food Standards Agency register. Scotland runs the Food Hygiene Information Scheme (pass or improvement required) rather than England's 0–5 scores, which changes nothing here: these are counts of premises, not judgments of them.
Age profile
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Median age (exact) | 54 |
| Under 15 | 12.4% |
| 65 and over | 29.4% |
| 85 and over | 4.2% |
Scotland's Census 2022 publishes single year of age at output-area level, so this median is exact — the middle resident's actual age, with nothing interpolated. England's published tables stop at five-year bands, which is why English pages label their medians estimated and this one is not. Percentiles compare the 90 Scottish towns of 10,000+ residents with each other, never with England or Wales: their figures are a different census year, and a percentile that quietly mixed the two would be a lie with a percent sign.
Who owns the homes
| Measure | % of households |
|---|---|
| Owned, outright or with a mortgage | 63.5% |
| of which owned outright | 46.0% |
| Social rented | 28.1% |
| Private rented | 8.4% |
| Household has no car or van | 24.6% |
| Household has two or more | 30.2% |
Scotland's Census 2022, over the 285 occupied households of the locality. Shared ownership and shared equity count with mortgaged homes; every share is of households, not residents.
Deprivation
The middle postcode here sits in decile 4 of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, where decile 1 is the most deprived tenth of Scotland's data zones and 10 the least. 0% of the locality's postcodes sit in the most deprived three deciles, 0% in the least deprived three.
SIMD 2020, Scotland's own index — never comparable with England's IMD, and never compared here. Weighted by postcodes rather than people, because the postcode file carries no population, and said so for the same reason the postcode-district pages say it.
Go deeper
Nearby in Highland
| # | Place | Population |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyle of Lochalsh | 650 |
| 2 | Ballachulish | 650 |
| 3 | Croy | 641 |
| 4 | Bowertower | 633 |
| 5 | Spean Bridge | 570 |
| 6 | Boat of Garten | 517 |