Boorley Green is lived in by young families with mortgages, and hardly anyone else. The typical resident is about thirty. Two in three households own their home. Nearly four in ten are couples with children. It's a street of neighbours who all seem to be on the same five-year plan.
Ownership is the norm. About 68% of households own their home, around 15% rent from a social landlord and only about 5% rent privately. The private renter is close to extinct here, which makes sense given how few flats there are to rent. Anyone who wanted a transient crowd of short lets came to the wrong estate.
This is young territory. The median age is 31, and about 39% of residents are between 25 and 44. Some of that comes from the children pulling the average down, which the household figures below confirm. Local retirees are thin on the ground. The mood on these streets is car seats rather than bowls clubs.
Household income here is high. Modelled gross household income, before tax, averaged around £85,000 across the area in the financial year to March 2023. That's a figure from a few years back rather than today's pay packets, and it's an area average, so it hides the variation between one household and the next. It still describes a place where two earners are the norm, with a mortgage built around both jobs lasting.
The 2021 Census, the source for all the population figures here, shows who shares these houses. About 38% of households are couples with children and about 13% are lone-parent households. Around 13% are one person living alone, and about 3% of households are a single pensioner living alone, a group that sits inside the one-person figure rather than on top of it. The quiet solo household that half of England seems to be made of is rare here. A home office has to fit around a nursery.
Qualifications run towards the professional end. About 41% of residents hold a degree, around 7% have no formal qualifications, and about 2% are full-time students. So it isn't a student area and it isn't an early-retirement one. It's a place for people in the middle of their careers, trying to work from home while someone plays a recorder in the next room.
Only 16 people live in communal settings such as care homes, too few to change anything above. Nearly everyone is in an ordinary private household, and most of those households are busy.
The people are one of Boorley Green's strengths: young, well-paid, well-qualified and mostly buying. Anyone who isn't raising a family will notice they're in the minority.