Edinburgh and the Lothians guides
The rest of this section answers “which area”. These answer the questions that come before it: what things cost, how renting works here, how the transport network actually behaves, and what to sort out in which order.
5 guides
Renting
Renting in Scotland: what is different
No fixed term, no no-fault eviction, and a deposit scheme with teeth. The Scottish system genuinely favours tenants, and most people arriving do not know it.
8 min read
Money
How much do you need to earn to live in Edinburgh?
Worked backwards from rent to salary, on the Scottish tax bands — which change the answer above about £43,000.
8 min read
Money
Council tax and water charges in Edinburgh and the Lothians
Why the bill is bigger than the charge, why Scottish bands E to H cost more than the English ratios imply, and what the four councils charge.
6 min read
Transport
Getting around Edinburgh without a car
One of the best bus networks in Britain, one tram line, and a compact centre that makes both less necessary than you would think.
7 min read
Renting
Edinburgh in August: what the Festival does to renting
For one month a year a large part of the housing stock is worth more to a tourist than to you. Here is what that does, and what changed.
6 min read
Every checkable figure in these guides carries a source and a review date, and the tables inside them read the same datasets as the rest of the site, so a rent revision updates the guides in the same deploy. Where a figure could not be corroborated against a source we were willing to publish, the guide says to check it rather than quoting it.