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An Official Statistics Publication.

The Scottish Household Survey: Satisfaction with Schools 2025 statistics, published today, contains the key findings of the question asked on satisfaction with local schools for all adults and service users.

Adult satisfaction with local schools increased from 69% in 2024 to 72% in 2025.

Satisfaction with schools has generally decreased over time since the peak of 85% in 2011 to 69% in 2022, remaining unchanged until the latest year, 2025, where it increased slightly.

Although satisfaction levels have increased since 2024, there has also been an increase in dissatisfaction from 9% in 2024 to 11% in 2025 with a decrease in those who were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied from 22% to 17%.

As with previous years, service users were more satisfied with local schools (80%) than non-service users (68%) in 2025.

Although satisfaction with schools for service users is similar to 2024 (81%), it is the lowest it has been since the start of the time series in 2007/2008.

In comparison, satisfaction with schools for non-service users has increased in recent years, from 61% in 2022 to 68% in 2025, returning to pre-COVID levels.

For both the whole adult population and service users only, satisfaction with local schools was similar across Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintiles. 

Background

Service users of local schools are identified by whether there is a school-aged child present in the household.

The Scottish Household Survey (SHS): Satisfaction with Schools 2025 publication, including a summary of key results, is available on the school education statistics website. The satisfaction with schools tables will be updated in the SHS Data Explorer on 30th October 2026. The 2025 methodology and fieldwork outcomes report is available through the Scottish Government Publications page.

Official Statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Some of the differences between groups may be due to random sampling variation i.e. chance. Similarly, some apparent differences between results over time may occur by chance. We use standard statistical tests of significance to determine the likelihood of differences being due to chance. When the report refers to differences between groups or years, these differences are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level unless explicitly stated otherwise. Some differences between groups in the supporting tables that appear large may not be mentioned in the report, because they are not statistically significant due to small sample sizes and large margins of error. Confidence intervals for different estimates and sample sizes have been provided in the supporting tables.