Who Owns Scotland 2024 (a preliminary analysis)

It is twelve years since I last published comprehensive statistics on who owns Scotland. With a Land Reform Bill going through Parliament, I though it might be helpful to bring the data up to date. There are obvious connections between this data and the Land Reform bill and I will be publishing a separate analysis of this in the next few days.

I run the Who Owns Scotland project which aims to document the ownership of 75% of Scotland and is on track to achieve this by May 2025. Data derived from this project and other sources has formed the basis of what is a preliminary analysis of who owns Scotland 2024. I will be publishing a fuller and final analysis later this year.

You can read my report Who Owns Scotland 2024 here.

The Guardian has a story about it today.

In summary, here is what I found.

Rural Scotland is still overwhelmingly privately-owned accounting for 83% of rural Scotland. For the purposes of this study, private ownership excludes public, heritage and community landowners.

Community landownership has increased by 40,048 ha from 172,294 ha in 2012 to 212,342 ha in 2024 (a 23% increase in extent) and accounts for 2.8%

Environmental organisations such as the National Trust for Scotland and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds own much what they did 12 years ago at 2.5%.

The public sector estate has decreased by 20,907 ha (2.2%) since 2012 and now owns 11.7% of rural Scotland.

Private rural landownership has become more concentrated over the past 12 years with 433 landowners owning 50% of the privately-owned rural land in 2024 compared to 440 in 2012 (see table below).

% of private rural land held	No. owners 2012	No. owners 2024	extent (ha) 2024
10%	16	16	639,268
20%	50	51	1,278,535
30%	111	115	1,917,803
40%	224	225	2,557,071
50%	440	433	3,196,339
60%	989	968	3,835,606
70%	3,161	2,877	4,474,874

Whereas in 2012, 3380 landowners owned 4.5 million ha of privately-owned rural land, now that same amount is owned by 3012 owners.

Landholdings are getting larger. Today, 1238 landowners own 3,993,022 ha of land (62.5% of privately-owned rural land) in landholdings of over 500 ha in extent compared to 1252 in 2012 who owned 3,992,194 ha (62.4%).

What is going on?

Well, as far as the very largest landowners are concerned (those who account for half of the privately owned rural land) some have sold and their land has been bought by others. That is normal. But big players like the Duke of Buccleuch has been selling land, reducing his landholding in Scotland by 32% from 97,890 ha in 2012 to 66,345 ha in 2024.

But such downsizing has been more than offset at the upper end of the landownership scale and at the lower end by the steady accumulation of more land by existing landowners. In my report I highlight examples of those at the top end who have been expanding their holdings. The table below shows the top 20 largest private landowners in 2024.

	Landholding	hectares	Owner
1	Glen Feshie & others	88,296	Wildland Ltd. (Anders Povlsen)
2	Buccleuch Estates	66,345	Buccleuch Estates Ltd
3	Gresham House properties	53,775	Gresham House Ltd. partnerships
4	Atholl Estates	49,853	Atholl Trustees & Sarah Hope Troughton
5	Mamore & Killiechonate Estate	46,764	Simec Lochaber Hydropower 2 Ltd
6	Reay Estate	38,365	Trustees of the 4th Duke of Westminster
7	Invercauld Estate	37,953	Captain Farquharson’s Trusts
8	Seafield Estate	37,901	Earl of Seafield and Trusts
9	Strathconon Estate	36,933	Strathconon Estates Ltd.
10	Sutherland Estate	32,928	Executors of Countess of Sutherland
11	Blackmount & Glen Etive Estate	31,832	Philip Fleming
12	Braulen & Glenavon Estate	28,729	Andras Ltd. and Glenavon Ltd.
13	Locheil Estate	25,684	Trustees of Donald Cameron
14	Conaglen & Rothes Estate	25,541	Trustees of John and Richard Guthrie
15	Killilan, Inverinate & Benula	25,485	Smech Properties Ltd.
16	Applecross Estate	24,877	Applecross Estate Trust
17	Drummond Estate	24,665	Baroness Willoughby de Eresby
18	Various properties	24,258	Julia & Guy Hands
19	Corrour Estate	23,037	The Corrour Property Company
20	Corrievarkie Estate	22,738	Compania Financiera Waterville SA

• Wildland Ltd (Anders Povlsen) has expanded its landholdings by 37% from 64,457 ha in
  2012 to 88,296 ha in 2024.
• Gresham House Ltd. owned no land in Scotland in 2012 and now owns more than
  53,775 ha of land via a number of Scottish Limited Partnerships and other vehicles
  making it the third largest private landowner in Scotland.
• Strathconon Estates Ltd. has expanded its landholdings by 31% from 28,266 ha in 2012
  to 36,933 ha in 2024 through the acquisition of Scardroy Estate in 2013 and Ledgowan.
  Estate in 2017.
• Julia and Guy Hands owned 7113 ha in 2012 and have expanded their landholding by
  241% to 24,258 ha in 2024. This includes the 5632 ha Griffin Estate in Perthshire on the
  market in 2023 at offers over £130 million.

Other owners, mainly London-based financial corporations have been expanding their landholdings. Some of these are highlighted in my Rural Land Market Report 2020 – 2022.

Legal entities (companies, trusts and partnerships own more that 65% of all privately-owned rural land with around 35% owned by individuals.

Understanding who owns Scotland, how the pattern is changing and why is a vital part of designing policies and legislation to change that pattern. The current trend is being driven by powerful financial interests and there are no meaningful measures being proposed to reverse it.

I will be publishing further blogs on some of the stories behind the statistics in the coming weeks.

Please read the full report here.