Borehamwood is a mixed working town of about 40,000 people, and the post-war estates still shape who lives in them. Just over half own their homes. About a quarter rent from a social landlord. The typical resident is in their late thirties. Household incomes look comfortable on paper, before tax takes its share.
At the 2021 Census, the source for every population figure on this page, about 54% of Borehamwood's households owned their home, 18% rented privately and 26% rented from a council or housing association. After the Second World War, large council estates went up here for displaced Londoners. Many of those homes are now privately owned, and the social-rent share shows how many are not. That split runs through the town's streets, with owners and tenants on the same road.
The median resident is 38, and about 30% of residents are aged 25 to 44. Those are the years of first mortgages, young children and long journeys to work. Borehamwood is a town in the thick of family life, and the post-war estates have had nearly eighty years to fill and refill with it.
The Office for National Statistics modelled average household income across Borehamwood at about £69,000 before tax for the financial year to March 2023. That is a gross figure from a few years back, averaged across the town's neighbourhoods. A comfortable-sounding average spread across a town this mixed still describes almost no one household.
About 28% of households are people living alone, and about 11% of all households are a single pensioner living alone, part of that same group. Couples with dependent children make up about 24%, and lone parents about 14%. Lone parents form a noticeable share for a Hertfordshire town, which fits a place with plenty of social housing and two-bed flats. A buyer in a family semi will find young families on the same street, along with retired residents who have been there since the estates were new.
About 37% of adults hold a degree or equivalent, about 18% have no formal qualifications, and only about 2% of residents are full-time students. That spread fits a town where studio crews, office workers and long-standing estate residents share the same high street. Oaklands College has a small site in Borehamwood, and with a student share that low, very few of its students live here.
Borehamwood's residents are a balanced middle-of-the-road mix: owners and social tenants, graduates and school-leavers, with a typical household somewhere in the middle. It is an ordinary working town that buyers can move into without having to fit any one type.