Abbey Wood is home to working-age households, families and renters. Under half own their home. A third rent from a social landlord. The typical resident is in their mid-thirties. One-parent and two-parent families are about equally common.
Every population figure here comes from the 2021 Census, which counted about 32,100 people in 11,542 households. About 45% of households own their home, 22% rent privately and 32% rent from a social landlord. There are more social renters than private renters, so the typical landlord here is a council or housing association, not a buy-to-let investor.
The median age is 36, and about 29% of residents are aged 25 to 44. That age group sets the tone. It means commuting, nursery fees and saving for a deposit, and hardly anyone is retired here.
The Office for National Statistics models gross household income at about £66,900 a year before tax for the financial year to March 2023, averaged across Abbey Wood's eight middle-sized neighbourhoods. An average across eight neighbourhoods hides how far streets with very different incomes are from each other.
Families make up a large share of households. About 19% are couples with children and another 19% are lone parents with children. There are about as many one-parent families as two-parent ones.
About 26% of households are one person living alone, and about 9% of all households are a single pensioner living alone. Those pensioners are part of the 26%, not extra to it. Even so, three-quarters of homes have more than one person in them.
About 36% of adults hold a degree-level qualification and about 21% have no formal qualifications. Only 3% are full-time students. Abbey Wood has graduates and people with no qualifications in similar numbers, and the students who use the station mostly live somewhere else.
About 84% of residents described their health as good or very good. Across the Royal Borough of Greenwich, deaths from preventable causes run at a rate similar to England's, and about 9% of adults in the borough smoke, which is also similar to England.
Abbey Wood is a young working area of renters and families, and on the usual measures of comfort it comes out below the middle. It is a place where people are busy making ends meet, and few here are comfortably off.