Most people in Arlesey are mid-career owner-occupiers with families, a mortgage and a car on the drive. About two-thirds own their home. The typical resident is around 40. Social renters outnumber private renters. Hardly anyone here is a student.
About 67% of Arlesey households own their home. About 14% rent privately and about 18% rent from the council or a housing association. Social tenants outnumbering private tenants is unusual in a commuter town near London, and buy-to-let landlords have made fewer inroads here than in many places like it.
All of the population figures on this page come from the 2021 census, which put Arlesey's median age at 40. About 29% of residents are aged 25 to 44. The town has plenty of people of working and parenting age and only about 1% full-time students.
The Office for National Statistics modelled typical household income in the area at about £62,000 a year before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. That is comfortable money, enough for a semi with a car on the drive in a town where many households run two. It is a gross figure from three years ago, and mortgage lenders work from income after tax.
About 29% of households are one person living alone, and about 9% are a single pensioner, a group counted within that 29%. Couples with dependent children make up about 21% of households and lone parents about 10%. Family homes outnumber everything else, but many smaller households live alongside them.
About 30% of residents have a degree or equivalent, and about 15% have no formal qualifications. The town grew around brickworks that closed in 1992. Its residents now include both graduates and the people who learned their work on the job, which is what you would expect of a former industrial town that now sends many of its workers off by car and train.
At the 2021 census, about 83% of Arlesey residents described their health as good or very good, and about 5% as bad or very bad. Across Central Bedfordshire as a whole, the rate of deaths from preventable causes is better than the England average. Smoking in the council area is similar to the England rate, at about 10% of adults. Both figures describe the whole council area, not Arlesey alone.
Arlesey is a middling mix of owners, families and social tenants, typical of a market town. It has no particular claim to wealth and no particular problems, and the residents are of an age to want space and a short drive to work.