Acton is home to people in their thirties who mostly rent, often earn well and mostly haven't bought yet. About six in ten households rent. Around half the adults have a degree, and the typical resident is 34. Owning a home here makes you the odd one out on your street.
At the 2021 census, which is the source for every population figure on this page, about 36% of Acton's households owned their home, about 39% rented privately and about 22% rented from a council or housing association. Acton has more households paying a landlord than paying a mortgage, and next to the Elizabeth line the landlords bought first.
The median resident is 34, and about 37% of residents are aged 25 to 44. Acton's population is at the age where a pension exists in principle and gets checked about once a decade.
Household income is modelled by the Office for National Statistics at about £74,700 a year before tax for the financial year to March 2023, averaged across the area. The same modelling puts income after housing and tax deductions nearer £53,900. The gross figure is the one people quote, and the net one is what the rent comes out of.
About 32% of households are one person living alone, and about 8% are pensioners living alone, who are part of that 32%. Couples with dependent children make up about 18% of households, and lone parents about 12%. With almost a third of Acton's households a single person, the one-bedroom flat is what the place is built around.
About 51% of residents aged 16 and over hold a degree or equivalent, about 14% have no formal qualifications, and about 4% are full-time students. Acton is full of graduates without being a student town, and the people with no qualifications at all are its neighbours on the same streets.
At the census about 87% of Acton residents described their health as good or very good, and about 4% as bad or very bad. Ealing as a whole does better than England on deaths from preventable causes, and its smoking rate, about 7%, is similar to the national figure. Both are borough figures set against an England benchmark, so they describe the whole council area.
About 2,815 Acton residents live in communal settings such as care homes, hostels and other shared institutions, outside private households altogether. That is a noticeable share for a place without a big student population, and it means the household figures above describe most of Acton's people but not every resident.
Acton's population is middling on paper: plenty of graduates and good incomes, but mostly renting and with every stage of life crowded into the same streets. Buyers will be joining a neighbourhood where owners are the minority and turnover is part of the rhythm.