Barkingside is mostly families in their thirties and forties paying off a mortgage. Six in ten households own their home. The typical resident is in their late thirties. Four in ten have a degree. It is a suburb of working households raising children, and the people living here are about as ordinary a mix as outer London gets.
Every population figure here comes from the 2021 census unless another source is named. About 60% of Barkingside's households own their home, and about 25% rent privately, with the rest mostly in social housing. In practice that means homeowners on long mortgages living next to tenants on one-year contracts, and the homeowners are the ones who stay.
The median resident is 37, and about 32% of people are aged 25 to 44. That is the age when people buy a house, have children and start caring which primary school is nearest. Barkingside has a lot of residents at exactly that stage.
The Office for National Statistics models average household income here at about £71,800 for the financial year to March 2023, before tax. It is a reasonable income for two working adults, though once tax and a mortgage on a house near half a million pounds are taken out, much less of it is left to spend.
About 24% of households are couples with dependent children, and about 13% are lone parents. Together that is a large share of homes with children in them, and it explains why the primary schools and parks are so busy.
At the other end, about 25% of households are one person living alone, and about 12% of all households are a single pensioner living alone, a group included within that 25%. They are mostly long-standing residents who stayed on after their own children grew up and left, and they tend to know more about the street than anyone else on it.
About 40% of residents hold a degree, about 19% have no formal qualifications, and only about 3% are full-time students. There is no university here, so the population does not change with the academic year. People in Barkingside are mostly here to work, whatever their qualifications.
About 84% of residents describe their health as good or very good. Across Redbridge as a whole, preventable deaths are better than the England rate, and smoking, at about 9% of adults, is similar to England. Those are borough-wide measures, but they fit a suburb of working adults in their late thirties.
Barkingside's residents are an average mix for outer London, mostly families with a mortgage, a job and children at the local schools. It is a place for raising a family more than for starting out or retiring.