Berkeley is home to settled homeowners in middle age and beyond, with some families and a smaller share of renters. Seven in ten own their home. The typical resident is nearly fifty. Households are comfortable on paper, and the town's young adults are thinner on the ground than its pensioners.
The 2021 Census, the source for every population figure on this page, counted 2,596 people in 1,194 households. About 71% of households own their home, about 16% rent privately and about 12% rent from a social landlord. Ownership is the default here, and a private tenant looking for somewhere to rent will find the choice short.
The typical Berkeley resident is 48, and about 24% of the population is aged 25 to 44, the years when most people are building careers and families. A quarter of the town in its prime working years, and a median age within sight of fifty, makes Berkeley a place people tend to arrive in once the commuting years are under control.
The Office for National Statistics modelled gross household income for the area at about £60,000 a year, before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. After tax the same households come out at about £42,000. Gross is the generous version of the number, and the one a mortgage lender will quote back at you only after it has worked out the smaller one.
Lone parents head about 7% of households, a small share in a town where most homes are owned by couples or by people living alone.
About 32% of households are one person living alone, and within that, about 17% of all households are a single pensioner. Couples with dependent children make up about 18% of households. A town where a pensioner on their own is almost as common a household as a couple raising children is a town whose busiest hour is the morning, not the school run.
About 29% of adults hold a degree-level qualification and about 17% have no formal qualifications, and full-time students account for about 1% of residents. The town that produced Edward Jenner, who went off to London to study medicine and came straight back to be the local doctor, still sends its students away to learn and keeps very few of them in town while they do it.
Berkeley's population is one of its strengths: established, comfortable and mostly owner-occupied, with enough families mixed in to keep the primary school busy.