Bexley is home to settled, comfortable owner-occupiers, most of them in their middle years and staying put. Five households in six own their home. Renters are a small minority. Household incomes run high. People arrive here with a family and leave, if at all, a long time later.
Ownership is the defining fact. At the 2021 census, which supplies every population figure on this page, about 85% of Bexley's households owned their home, about 10% rented privately and about 4% rented from a council or housing association. A removal van on a Bexley street is an event, and the neighbours usually know where it is going.
The age profile sits in the middle. The median resident is 43, and about 24% of people are aged 25 to 44. It is a place of parents and people whose children have recently left, with fewer young professionals than the station would lead anyone to expect.
Money is comfortable. The Office for National Statistics models gross household income across the area at about £77,400 a year for the financial year to March 2023, before tax and averaged across neighbourhoods. That is a household figure, often two salaries, and in a village where most people own outright or are well into a mortgage, it goes a long way further than the same income does for anyone still trying to buy in.
Household make-up is a mix of families and people living alone. About 25% of households are couples with children, about 9% are lone parents, and about 23% are one person living alone. Within that last group, about 14% of all households are a single pensioner. Behind plenty of the three- and four-bed semis is one person who raised a family there and has no intention of leaving.
Qualifications cover a wide spread. About 32% of residents hold a degree, about 15% have no formal qualifications, and fewer than 2% are full-time students. Bexley has no university to tilt the figures, so the student share stays close to nothing and the age profile stays where the families put it.
Health is good. About 85% of Bexley's residents described their health as good or very good at the census, and about 4% as bad or very bad. For the London Borough of Bexley as a whole, the rate of deaths from preventable causes is similar to England's, and the share of adults who smoke, at about 7%, is also similar to England's.
Bexley is a place of homeowners who are doing well and planning to stay, with families and long-term residents in roughly equal measure. Buyers who join them tend to become part of the furniture too, which for a village this comfortable is a fair description of the whole place.