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Occasional Paper

Scotland's Census 2001 - Statistics on Travel to Work or Study

Travel between local authority areas 

Table 2 gives a local authority level breakdown of both people living in these areas and people working or studying there.

Of the 2,835,000 Scottish residents who travelled to a place of work or study within Scotland, 646,000 (23 per cent) travelled to a place of work or study in a different council area from the one they lived in.

This varied greatly between local authorities.  It was lowest in the Shetland Islands, where only 2 per cent of resident workers/students travelled to a different council area.  The proportion was also low in the Orkney Islands, Highland, and Eilean Siar (3, 3 and 4 per cent, respectively).  In addition, it was below 10 per cent in all of the four main city authorities apart from Glasgow City (17 per cent).

The highest proportion was in East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire (62 and 57 per cent respectively).  These were the only council areas where, out of residents who travelled to work or study, more people worked or studied in another council area than in their local council area.

There were nine local authority areas where more than a third of residents who travelled to work or study, travelled to another council area.  All but one of these nine bordered either Glasgow City or City of Edinburgh council areas.  This loss of “daytime population” was highest in East Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire.

As might be expected, the four main city local authority areas had large net gains in their “daytime population” (Table 2 & Map 1).  Indeed, 53 per cent of all people in Scotland who worked or studied in a different council area from the one they lived in, worked/studied in these four areas.

The gain in “daytime population” was largest, both in terms of numbers and percentage of population, in Glasgow City which gained 22 per cent of its population (125,100).  The next highest percentage gain (18 per cent) was in Aberdeen City.  That does not include people who lived outwith Aberdeen City but who travelled from the city to an offshore oil installation - had these people been included, the gain in Aberdeen City’s “daytime population” would have been 23 per cent.  Among the other council areas, South Ayrshire and Stirling showed net gains of 2,100 and 2,900 respectively, with the Shetland Islands showing a very small gain of 32 people.

Around 16,200 people travelled from a Scottish home address to a place of work/study in England, Wales or Northern Ireland (Table 2).  30 per cent of these lived in the two Scottish council areas which border onto England – Dumfries & Galloway and the Scottish Borders – with a further 8 per cent travelling from Edinburgh.