Battersea belongs to well-qualified people in their thirties, most of whom rent the homes they live in. Only about a third of households own. Six in ten rent. Two in three adults have a degree. Couples with children are a small minority.
Tenure divides the district into three roughly equal parts. About 37% of households own their home, about 38% rent privately and about 23% rent social housing. If you are buying a flat, ask how many others in the block are let, because in Battersea your neighbours on the landing are about as likely to be tenants as owners.
The typical resident is 33, and about 45% of people are aged 25 to 44. For a district with this many listed buildings, the population is strikingly young. The architecture is Victorian, and the people living in it mostly are not.
Incomes are high. Office for National Statistics modelling puts typical household income at about £87,000 a year before tax for the financial year to March 2023. That is the gross figure, three years old, before tax and the rent or mortgage come out of it.
The household mix comes from the 2021 census, as do all the population figures on this page. About 32% of households are one person living alone, and within that, about 7% of all households are a pensioner on their own. About 15% are couples with children, and about 11% are lone parents. Wandsworth's schools are graded almost entirely good or better, and in Battersea families with children are a minority of the people living near them.
Qualifications are high. About 65% of adults have a degree, about 9% have no formal qualifications and about 2% are full-time students. Battersea is not a student area. Most residents have finished their education and are at work.
Health is good. About 90% of residents describe their health as good or very good, and about 3% as bad or very bad. Wandsworth as a whole does better than England on deaths from preventable causes, and its smoking rate, about 9% of adults, is similar to the England average.
Battersea's population is a better-than-middling mix: young, educated and well paid. What holds it back from more is that so few residents own their homes or are bringing up children here.