Rotating Rayleigh–Bénard convection provides a simplified dynamical analogue for many planetary and stellar fluid systems. Here, we use numerical simulations of rotating Rayleigh–Bénard convection to investigate the scaling behaviour of five quantities over a range of Rayleigh (
$1{0}^{3} \lesssim \mathit{Ra}\lesssim 1{0}^{9} $), Prandtl (
$1\leq \mathit{Pr}\leq 100$) and Ekman (
$1{0}^{- 6} \leq E\leq \infty $) numbers. The five quantities of interest are the viscous and thermal boundary layer thicknesses,
${\delta }_{v} $ and
${\delta }_{T} $, mean temperature gradients,
$\beta $, characteristic horizontal length scales,
$\ell $, and flow speeds,
$\mathit{Pe}$. Three parameter regimes in which different scalings apply are quantified: non-rotating, weakly rotating and rotationally constrained. In the rotationally constrained regime, all five quantities are affected by rotation. In the weakly rotating regime,
${\delta }_{T} $,
$\beta $ and
$\mathit{Pe}$, roughly conform to their non-rotating behaviour, but
${\delta }_{v} $ and
$\ell $ are still strongly affected by the Coriolis force. A summary of scaling results is given in table 2.