Climate rankings

Coldest places in the UK

Perth and Kinross is the coldest place in the UK, with an average temperature of just 6.9°C. Winter daytime highs drop to just 4.5°C in January. It gets 137 frost days per year.

Angus has the most frost, with 141 days of frost per year. That's nearly 4.7 months of the year with freezing conditions.

Altitude is the biggest factor. Upland areas in northern England, the Scottish Highlands, and Snowdonia are consistently the coldest. Coastal areas, even in northern Scotland, tend to be milder than inland areas at the same latitude because the sea moderates temperatures.

Data last updated: 7 July 2026

The table below ranks all 350 areas by average annual temperature, from coldest to warmest. You can search for a specific area, filter by region, or switch to the Frost Days tab to see which areas spend the most time below freezing. Click any column header to re-sort the rankings.

Showing 350 of 350 areas.

A closer look at the top 10

Nine of the ten coldest areas in the UK are in Scotland. Perth and Kinross leads at just 6.9°C average annual temperature, followed by Highland (7.2°C), Angus (7.3°C), Aberdeenshire and Moray (7.4°C), Stirling (7.6°C), South Lanarkshire (7.7°C), Scottish Borders and Shetland (7.8°C) and East Ayrshire (8.0°C). The only reason there is any variety at the top of the table is that Scotland is large; the whole coldest band of the UK is essentially one country.

Perth and Kinross comes out coldest because of a combination that most Scottish authorities do not have all at once: significant altitude in the Cairngorms and southern Highland glens, and an inland position that removes the moderating effect of the sea. It records 137 frost days a year, roughly 4.6 months of the year when overnight temperatures drop below zero.

Angus is worth flagging as an anomaly. Its average temperature (7.3°C) is warmer than Perth and Kinross, but it records 141 frost days a year, the highest in the top 10 and actually the most of any UK authority. The average pulls in the milder coastal strip along the Angus coast, while inland Angus around Glen Clova and Glen Prosen gets the cold clear nights that drive frost days up. It is a good reminder that a single average temperature can hide big local variation.

Shetland is the other outlier and in the opposite direction. It sits at #9 for coldest by mean temperature, but it records just 76 frost days a year, roughly half of what inland Scotland records. The sea surrounds the islands and stops overnight temperatures dropping as far. It is cold in the sense that its summer daytime highs average only 10.0°C, which is the lowest in the country, but it rarely actually freezes.

The first English entry in the ranking, Westmorland and Furness at 8.1°C, sits at #11. Both altitude (the Lake District fells) and northerly latitude push it into the top 15, but neither factor alone is enough to catch up with Scottish authorities that have both. Stirling is worth noting too because it combines cold temperatures at 7.6°C with 2,078mm of rainfall a year — the second wettest UK authority alongside genuine cold, which is a very particular combination.

Key findings

  • Perth and Kinross is the coldest area at 6.9°C average annual temperature.
  • Winter daytime highs in Perth and Kinross average just 4.5°C in January.
  • Angus has the most frost days, at 141 per year.
  • Scotland averages 2.2°C colder than England across the ranked areas.

Methodology

Areas are ranked using Met Office HadUK-Grid 5km-resolution climate data, averaged over the 1991-2020 reference period. Average temperature is the annual mean daily temperature; daytime high is the annual mean daily maximum; frost days are counted as days where the minimum temperature falls to 0°C or below.

Read more about our data sources and approach on the About page.

Frequently asked questions about the coldest places in the UK

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Source: Met Office HadUK-Grid, 1991-2020 averages. Crown copyright. Open Government Licence v3.0.