Most people in Belgravia rent, and a lot of them live alone. Fewer than one household in three owns its home. About one in five rents from a social landlord. Most adults have a degree. This is not the household of dynastic heirs the stucco suggests. It is closer to a mix of graduates, flat-sharers and single people who happen to look out on very good railings.
The 2021 census, which is the source for every population figure here, counted 14,211 residents in 7,097 households. About 31% of households own their home, about 48% rent privately and about 20% rent from a council or housing association. The social renting surprises people, because the white terraces make the area look like a place where nobody has ever been on a waiting list.
The median age is 41, and about 31% of residents are aged 25 to 44. That puts the typical resident in the middle of a career, not at the start or end of one. The district is named after a village in Cheshire near the Grosvenor family's country seat at Eaton Hall, so even the name was borrowed from the landlord's other address.
The Office for National Statistics models typical household income here at about £86,000 before tax for the financial year to March 2023. After tax, the same modelling puts it at about £63,000. That is a comfortable income almost anywhere. Here it covers renting a flat comfortably, but buying one of the houses on the square takes money from somewhere other than a salary.
About 46% of households are a single person. About 10% are a single pensioner, a group counted within that 46%. Only about 10% are couples with children, and about 9% are lone parents. A typical door in Belgravia opens onto one adult living alone, often in a flat carved out of a house built for a family with servants.
About 61% of residents aged 16 and over hold a degree, about 10% have no formal qualifications and about 2% are full-time students. Students are rare because rents this high are a long way out of reach for most of them. The educated majority here is made up of people already working, not people still studying.
About 90% of residents described their health as good or very good at the census, and about 3% as bad or very bad. Across Westminster as a whole, preventable deaths run at a better rate than in England, and adult smoking, at about 14%, is similar to the England figure. Both are borough-level comparisons and do not describe these streets alone. They are the closest official measure of how Belgravia's neighbours are faring.
Belgravia is home to a well-educated, healthy, mostly renting population, with more people living alone than living as families. It does better than average on who lives here, though it is far less grand than the facades suggest.