Population Statistics
Cambuslang
HomeUKSouth LanarkshireCambuslang

South Lanarkshire · Scotland

Cambuslang population

30,790people · latest estimate

Photo: Iain Thompson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By James Burfield, SEO consultant, Bath · Page updated · GeoNames

Cambuslang has a population of 30,790, making it the 5th largest place in South Lanarkshire.

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

Cambuslang in context

4 km
north-west to Rutherglen, the nearest larger town
949,649
people live within 10 km
#426
largest of 6,358 UK places
Cambuslang 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
Cambuslang locality
NRS census geography: the continuously built-up Cambuslang
33,207Census 2022
Cambuslang (GeoNames record)
the figure in this page's heading; boundary unstated
30,790GeoNames

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 22% of Scottish towns)288.4
Restaurants and cafés4212.6
Pubs and bars195.7
Supermarkets and convenience30.9

Registered food establishments in the Cambuslang 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 4% of Scottish towns)38
Under 1519.6%
65 and over13.4%
85 and over1.3%

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 80% of Scottish towns)72.5%
  of which owned outright25.9%
Social rented20.1%
Private rented7.1%
Household has no car or van (higher than 24% of Scottish towns)21.0%
Household has two or more37.9%

Scotland's Census 2022, over the 13,646 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 home33.4%
Car or van (of those who travelled)78.5%
Public transport (of those who travelled)14.3%
On foot (of those who travelled)3.6%
Bicycle (of those who travelled)0.8%

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 16,689 employed residents who travelled, never of everyone.

Deprivation

The middle postcode here sits in decile 5 of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, where decile 1 is the most deprived tenth of Scotland's data zones and 10 the least. 44% of the locality's postcodes sit in the most deprived three deciles, 39% 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: 1 good, 2 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.

Railway stations

Stations in the locality: Cambuslang (831,150 entries and exits, ORR estimate), Kirkhill (64,162 entries and exits, ORR estimate), Newton (S Lanarks).

Stations are the DfT's NaPTAN register located by coordinates; passenger figures are the Office of Rail and Road's estimates, and a station shown without one did not match the ORR table by name. Bus stops are not shown for Scottish towns: the national stop register's west-of-Scotland submission is incomplete enough that a count would mislead, and no figure beats a wrong one.

Common questions

What is the population of Cambuslang?
The populated place itself holds 30,790 residents. The wider South Lanarkshire council area recorded 334,030 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
South Lanarkshire, year by year from ONS estimates

Nearby in South Lanarkshire

#PlacePopulation
1Meikle Earnock54,480
2Hamilton54,480
3Rutherglen30,950
4Dalserf17,985
5Blantyre17,090
6High Blantyre16,739

All 40 places in South Lanarkshire →