Population Statistics
Bonnyrigg
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Midlothian · Scotland

Bonnyrigg population

18,320people · latest estimate

By James Burfield, SEO consultant, Bath · Page updated · GeoNames · World Gazetteer 2005

Bonnyrigg has a population of 18,320, making it the largest place in Midlothian. In 2005 the World Gazetteer recorded 14,694, a rise of 24.7% since.

14,694
in 2005
+24.7%
since 2005
#1
of 12 in Midlothian

The other populations of Bonnyrigg

The same name covers more than one area, and each has its own figure.

What you meanPopulationSource
The place itself
The populated settlement, roughly the built-up core.
18,320 GeoNames
The place in 2005
The same settlement twenty years earlier.
14,694 World Gazetteer (2005)

Why these differ: which population figure is right? · compare with another place

The 2005 figure is from the World Gazetteer archive and may draw its boundary differently from the current source, so treat the change as indicative. Sources: method.

Year-by-year official estimates for the wider area: Midlothian population trends, 2001–2024.

Bonnyrigg in context

8 km
north-east to Musselburgh, the nearest larger town
107,020
people live within 10 km
#712
largest of 6,358 UK places
Bonnyrigg in the UK

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 meanPopulationSource
Bonnyrigg locality
NRS census geography: the continuously built-up Bonnyrigg
18,134Census 2022
Bonnyrigg (GeoNames record)
the figure in this page's heading; boundary unstated
18,320GeoNames

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

CategoryCountPer 10,000
Takeaways (more per head than 3% of Scottish towns)73.9
Restaurants and cafés2513.8
Pubs and bars63.3
Hotels and B&Bs10.6
Supermarkets and convenience31.7

Registered food establishments in the Bonnyrigg 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

MeasureValue
Median age (exact; older than 26% of Scottish towns)42
Under 1517.6%
65 and over19.1%
85 and over2.1%

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 (higher than 81% of Scottish towns)73.6%
  of which owned outright33.5%
Social rented19.0%
Private rented6.3%
Household has no car or van (higher than 12% of Scottish towns)17.6%
Household has two or more37.9%

Scotland's Census 2022, over the 7,406 occupied households of the locality. Shared ownership and shared equity count with mortgaged homes; every share is of households, not residents.

Getting to work

How working residents travelled (census day)Share
Worked mainly from home33.2%
Car or van (of those who travelled)73.7%
Public transport (of those who travelled)17.2%
On foot (of those who travelled)6.2%
Bicycle (of those who travelled)1.5%

Scotland's Census 2022, collected 20 March 2022: past the last legal restrictions, but with home working still far above the old normal, so these are census-day records and mode shares are of the 9,118 employed residents who travelled, never of everyone.

Deprivation

The middle postcode here sits in decile 6 of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, where decile 1 is the most deprived tenth of Scotland's data zones and 10 the least. 20% of the locality's postcodes sit in the most deprived three deciles, 30% 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.

Care homes, as Scotland's regulator grades them

Care homes for older people in the locality, by their lowest current grade: 2 good, 1 adequate.

The Care Inspectorate's six-point scale (excellent down to unsatisfactory), shown by each service's minimum current grade because that is the Inspectorate's own headline convention. Scotland's regulator and scale, never translated into the CQC's words.

Common questions

What is the population of Bonnyrigg?
The populated place itself holds 18,320 residents. The wider Midlothian council area recorded 99,880 in 2024. Each figure describes a different boundary and all are correct; the meanings table on this page says which is which, because a population without its boundary is not an answer.

Go deeper

Population since 2001
Midlothian, year by year from ONS estimates

Nearby in Midlothian

#PlacePopulation
1Penicuik16,150
2Mayfield13,690
3Dalkeith12,720
4Loanhead6,350

All 12 places in Midlothian →