Events from the year 1938 in Scotland.

• Secretary of State for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – Walter Elliot until 16 May; then John Colville

• 27 April – Second Division team East Fife F.C. uniquely win the Scottish Cup in Association football.^[1]
• 3 May – Empire Exhibition opens in Glasgow.^[2]
• 30 July – The Beano comic, published by D. C. Thomson & Co. of Dundee, goes on sale across the U.K.^[3]
• 27 September – RMS Queen Elizabeth is launched at Clydebank; she is the largest ship in the world at this time.
• Iona Community established by Rev. George MacLeod in Glasgow.
• English landowner David Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale, buys the island of Inch Kenneth.
• The Hermitage of Braid estate, adjacent to Blackford Hill, is gifted to the city of Edinburgh for recreational purposes by John McDougal.
• The Neolithic settlement of Rinyo on Rousay in Orkney is excavated by V. Gordon Childe.
• Broughton Place at Broughton in the Borders is built in the style of a traditional tower house by Basil Spence incorporating decorative reliefs by Hew Lorimer.^[4]
• Turner & Newall establish an asbestos cement plant at Dalmuir.
• Agnes Mure Mackenzie publishes The Foundations of Scotland, the first of a 6-volume history.

• 2 January – Ian Brady, born Ian Duncan Stewart, serial killer (died 2017 in Ashworth Hospital)
• 16 February – Willie Hamilton, footballer (died 1976 in Canada)
• 7 March – Alan Cousin, footballer (died 2016)
• 31 March
  • Ian Gray, comics scriptwriter (died 2007)
  • David Steel, UK Liberal Member of Parliament and Liberal Democrat leader and 1st Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament
• 16 April – Gordon Wilson, Scottish National Party leader (died 2017)
• 5 June – Moira Anderson, singer
• 18 June – Michael Sheard, character actor (died 2005)
• 27 June – David Hope, judge
• 7 June – Ian St John, footballer and manager (died 2021 in England)
• 28 July – Ian McCaskill, weatherman (died 2016)
• 13 September – John Smith, UK Labour Party leader (died 1994 in London)
• 14 September – Nicol Williamson, actor (died 2011)
• 20 October – Iain Macmillan, photographer (died 2006)^[5]
• 22 October – Alan Gilzean, footballer (died 2018)
• 25 November – Maria Fyfe, née O'Neill, politician (died 2020)
• 28 November – Frank Haffey, goalkeeper
• 16 December – Neil Connery, actor, younger brother of Sean Connery (died 2021)
• John Paisley, actor, working in China
• Roland Poska, graphic artist (died 2017 in the United States)

• 31 January – Sir James Crichton-Browne, psychiatrist (born 1840)
• 9 April – Moses McNeil, footballer, a founder of Rangers F.C. (born 1855)
• 11 April – David Alan Stevenson, lighthouse designer (born 1854)
• 25 April – Robert MacGregor Mitchell, Lord MacGregor Mitchell, Chairman of the Scottish Land Court 1934–38 (born 1875)
• 29 April – James Pittendrigh Macgillivray, sculptor and poet (born 1856)
• 2 July – John James Burnet, architect (born 1857)
• 29 August – John Macdonald, sportsman and physician (died 1861)

• Hugh S. Roberton writes the "Mingulay Boat Song".

• Timeline of Scottish history
• 1938 in Northern Ireland