How Scotland voted in the 2026 Holyrood election

A breakdown of how Scotland voted in the 2026 Scottish Parliament election by key demographic and political divides

Key takeaways

• The SNP were the most popular party in most social groups, though with the Greens winning the most votes among both private renters and the under 30s and Reform UK coming top among 2016 Leave voters
• 82% of 2014 “No” voters backed one of the four main unionist parties, while 62% of “Yes” voters backed the SNP or the Greens
• Reform UK’s support was highest among social renters, those with lower levels of education, and those from routine occupations, while peaking among those in their 50s and 60s
• 26% of those who cast a constituency vote for the SNP gave their regional vote to the Greens
• Just 42% of 2024 Labour voters who went to the polls last month voted Labour again, while the 2021 Conservative vote split 41% to 40% between those who stayed loyal and those who switched to Reform UK

Last month’s election to the Scottish Parliament saw the SNP returned for an historic fifth term in power, albeit from their lowest vote share in a devolved election in 23 years and against a backdrop of a massive shake-up in the rest of the Scottish party system. Now, using a sample of nearly 4,000 Scots, we can breakdown how Scotland voted in this seismic election by all the key demographic and political divides.

How Scots cast their two votes in 2026

Of course, unlike in Westminster elections, Scots have two votes in Holyrood elections: one to elect a local ‘constituency’ MSP under the first past the post system and one to elect a ‘regional’ party list by a form of proportional representation.

Our data suggests that 29% of Scottish voters cast their two votes for different parties, with roughly a third of this made up by the 26% of SNP constituency voters who gave their regional vote to the Greens. In some cases, this will have been down to the Greens only fielding candidates in six of the 73 constituencies, but fully 10% of all Scottish voters divided their votes in this way.

No other form of ‘mixed ballot’ amounts to more than 2% of all voters, with much of it cancelling itself out in net terms. Some of it is likely to represent unionist tactical voting, with 24% of Conservative regional voters backing another unionist party on the constituency vote, something also true of 12-16% of Labour, Lib Dem and Reform UK regional voters.

For the rest of this article, vote will refer to regional vote unless specified otherwise.

How Scotland voted in 2026, by constitutional preferences

The political divides stemming from the two constitutional referendums of the 2010s continue to loom large over Scottish politics.

Fully 82% of Scottish voters who said “No” to independence in 2014 backed one of the four main unionist parties this time round, though with none of them particularly dominant: Labour, Reform UK and the Conservatives all won 22-24% of the “No” vote, with the Lib Dems taking a 13% share.

This compares to the SNP winning 47% of the vote among 2014 “Yes” voters who went to the polls last month, roughly triple the Greens’ level of support (15%). However, 31% of the “Yes” vote went to pro-union parties.

Support for Reform UK was particularly concentrated among Scots who voted for Brexit in 2016, with Nigel Farage’s party taking 40% of the Leave vote north of the border. The Conservatives likewise won a higher share among Brexit voters (16% vs 12%), while the SNP did better among Remainers than Leavers (32% vs 19%), as did Labour (18% vs 11%), the Greens (14% vs 3%) and the Lib Dems (11% vs 7%).

Cutting the two referendum votes against each other can better highlight where each party’s voters stand on the big questions. For instance, while Reform UK did do better among “No” voters than “Yes” voters, their support among those who rejected independence is largely restricted to those who also voted to Leave the EU two years later, with 48% of such Scots backing the party.

Not just is this relative to Reform UK winning over just 10% of those who followed their “No” vote with one to Remain in the EU, but it is alongside voters who favoured both independence and Brexit now being near-evenly divided between Reform UK (32%) and the SNP (35%). This suggests that the European question is a bigger influence in support for Reform UK in Scotland than a voter’s stance on the future of the UK.

Conversely, the Conservatives do roughly as well among both types of “No” voter, indicating that the union between Scotland and England is more of an animating factor for them. Labour and the Lib Dems both do best among the No-Remain quadrant, while the SNP and Greens’ vote shares are highest among Yes-Remain voters.

How Scotland voted in 2026, by age

Age has been one of the main dividing lines in voting behaviour in recent elections in the UK, and the 2026 Holyrood election was no exception.

Younger voters were more likely to back pro-independence parties, particularly the Greens, who were the most popular party among the under 30s, where they took a 36% vote share, compared to just 6-8% among those aged 50 and over.

The SNP were the most popular party among all other age groups, winning between 26-33% of the vote among all but the under 30s, where they took a lower share of just 19%. In the first past the post contests, however, SNP support did skew towards younger voters, winning a constituency share of 45% among 16-29 year olds, relative to 30% among the over 70s.

Support for both Reform UK and the Conservatives was higher among older generations, though with the former doing best among those in their 50s and 60s, among whom they won 21% of the vote, while the Tories’ vote peaked at 20% among the over 70s. Whereas the Conservatives fell to single digit shares among all under 50 age groups (6-8%), Reform UK won 16% of the vote among Scots in their 40s, falling only to single digits among the under 30s.

In contrast to the party doing better among younger Britons at recent general elections, support for Labour in Scotland is now effectively flat across the generations, with one in six (16%) in all age groups voting for the party last month.

The median age of a Scottish Green voter is 35, relative to 49 for the Lib Dems, 52 for Labour, 54 for the SNP, 57 for Reform UK and 62 for the Conservatives.

How Scotland voted in 2026, by gender

Though not quite on the scale of other divides, there were some significant gender differences in how Scotland voted last month. Support for Reform UK was five points higher among men than women (19% vs 14%), while women were significantly more likely to back both the SNP (29% vs 25%) and the Lib Dems (12% vs 7%).

How Scotland voted in 2026, by education level

Someone’s level of education was a particularly strong indicator of how likely they were to vote for Reform UK or the Greens. The former won 25% of the vote among Scots whose highest level of qualification is an Ordinary or Standard Grade or lower, while it took just 11% among those with a degree. Conversely, 19% of university-educated voters backed the Greens, compared to only 6% of those with a lower level of education.

The SNP did a bit better among those with a lower level of educational attainment than among degree-holding voters (31% vs 26%), while the opposite was true of Labour (14% vs 18%).

How Scotland voted in 2026, by socio-economic classification

A similar, though not as sharp, pattern is apparent when looking at how Scots voted by their socio-economic classification (NS-SEC).

Reform UK found nearly twice as much support among Scots who are or were in routine or manual occupations than among those in the higher and professional category (22% vs 12%), with the SNP likewise doing better with those in the former group (31% vs 26%).

Scottish Labour have come a long way from their roots in manual labour on Clydeside, winning 20% of the vote among those in the professional and managerial classification, relative to just 13-14% of those most recently in an intermediate or routine occupation. The Greens and Conservatives also do better among those in the professional classes.

How Scotland voted in 2026, by household income

While most parties’ vote shares are reasonably consistent across household income bands, Labour secured a fifth of the vote (19%) among those with a household income of £70,000 or above, while taking just one in seven votes (14%) in households earning below £40,000.

The SNP, by comparison, earned roughly a third of the vote (31-33%) at the lower end of the income scale, relative to taking a 24% vote share in households with an income of £70,000 or more.

How Scotland voted in 2026, by housing tenure

Those who own their home outright were particularly likely to vote for unionist parties, with 62% backing one of the four main pro-union parties, compared to 52% of those on a mortgage, 48% of those renting from a council or housing association and just 44% of those renting from a private landlord.

Nonetheless, the unionist vote was fairly evenly split between parties among Scots who fully own their home, with the Conservatives, Labour and Reform UK all winning 17-18% of the vote in this demographic, placing them behind the SNP, who won a 25% share.

By contrast, Scots who rent from private landlords are one of the few social groups where the SNP did not secure the most votes, despite being one of the most likely to back pro-independence parties. Just 21% of such renters backed John Swinney’s party, relative to 29% instead voting for the Greens.

In terms of housing tenure, it’s among social renters that the SNP performed most strongly, with 38% of those who rent from a council or housing association voting for the party. Reform UK also did particularly well among such Scots, with 24% of social renters backing them.

How have Scottish voters moved between recent elections?

Of the many significant shifts between the 2021 and 2026 elections, the most notable was the collapse of the Scottish Conservatives and their replacement as the largest party of the right by Reform UK.

The main cause of this was the 2021 Conservative vote largely splitting in half, with 41% of those who voted sticking with the Tories and 40% switching to Reform UK. However, the right-wing populist party also won over 12% of voters who had backed Labour in 2021 and 8% of those who had voted for Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP.

Even if not to the same extent, it was not just the Tories who struggled to keep together their 2021 coalition. Just 50-55% of voters who had voted Labour, Lib Dem or Green five years ago stuck with their previous choice, as well as only 62% of 2021 SNP voters. Particularly sizeable shifts include the 18% of 2021 Lib Dems switching to Labour, the 22% of 2021 Greens moving to the SNP and the 12% of 2021 SNP voters reciprocating that move.

Of course, this May’s election didn’t just represent a substantial shift from five years ago, but also from the 2024 general election, which saw Labour win 35% of the Scottish vote, outpolling the SNP for the first time since the 2010 general election.

Central to Labour roughly halving their Scottish vote share in less than two years is that, of 2024 Labour voters who voted last month, a mere 42% backed the party again, with the rest fragmenting in all directions. This included 14% switching to the SNP, 13% to Reform UK and 8-10% to each of the other three main parties.

This multi-coloured disintegration somewhat reflects the patchwork nature of Scottish Labour’s 2024 coalition, with only 24-26% of those they had gained from the Tories and SNP between 2021 and 2024 sticking with Labour again, compared to 63% of those that had voted Labour in 2021. Ex-Tory 2024 Labour voters largely split between the Conservatives (34%) and Reform UK (33%), while 41% of those gained from the SNP returned to the nationalist party.

Though some of Reform UK’s supplanting of the Conservatives had already taken place prior to the last general election, fully 30% of 2024 Conservatives who went to the polls last month switched to Reform UK, with just 54% of Scots who had attempted to re-elect Rishi Sunak’s government backing the party this time around.

Reform UK were able to retain 90% of their 2024 voters, with the Greens keeping hold of 80%. On the constituency ballot, 88% of voters who had backed the SNP in 2024 remained with the party, though this fell to 65% on the regional ballot, where 19% instead switched to the Greens.

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Photo: Getty