Bourton-on-the-Water is lived in by comfortable, middle-aged homeowners, alongside more social tenants than the postcard suggests. Six in ten own their home. The typical resident is in their late forties. Nearly one household in five is a pensioner living alone. For a village known for its day-trippers, the people who stay overnight are an older and more settled crowd.
The 2021 Census, the source for every population figure here, counted 4,177 people in 1,869 households. About 62% of households own their home, about 16% rent privately and about 19% rent from a council or housing association. Social renting outnumbers private renting, which is the opposite of what most visitors would guess from the gift shops.
The typical resident is 48, and people aged 25 to 44 make up about 22% of the population. Those in their late twenties and thirties are here, but outnumbered, and the age profile leans towards people who have already done the school run and are now just coping with the traffic.
Household income here was about £60,000 before tax in the financial year to March 2023, a figure the Office for National Statistics models for a wider area than the village and averages across it. That is a comfortable number on paper, and more than three years old.
About 30% of households are one person living alone, and about 18% are pensioners living alone, who are part of that 30% and not on top of it. Couples with dependent children make up about 19% of households and lone parents about 9%. There are about as many single pensioners as there are couples bringing up children, which explains a lot about which way the village leans on a winter evening.
About 32% of adults hold a degree-level qualification, about 18% have no formal qualifications, and full-time students make up about 1% of residents. With so few students, the village has no university-term rhythm to speak of. The young adults mostly leave, and the people who come back tend to bring a pension with them.
Bourton-on-the-Water is a settled, comfortable and mostly prosperous village, a little older than average, with a larger share of social housing than its reputation suggests. That mix is one of the village's strengths, and it rarely appears in the photographs.