Mostly people who arrived a while ago and have no plans to leave. About eight in ten own their home. The typical resident is in their mid-fifties. Only about one in six is aged between 25 and 44. The Brockham area belongs to people with settled money who have been here a long time.
Owning is the norm here, by a long way. About 81% of households own their home, around 11% rent privately and about 7% rent from a council or housing association. With so few homes to rent, trying the village out before you buy is hard. Most people who want to live here have to commit to it straight away.
The age profile is older than the property listings suggest. The median age across the area is about 55, and only about 16% of residents are between 25 and 44, the age group that usually buys first homes and has young children. The houses have family-sized bedrooms, but many of the people in them are past the school years. Estate agents call these family homes, and the census suggests many of them are homes the families have grown up and left.
Money isn't the problem. The median gross household income, before tax, was about £63,000 in the financial year to March 2023. That's a modelled figure from before the latest rounds of pay rises and price rises, so treat it as a guide to the area, not a figure for today. It's enough to live comfortably, though not enough on its own to buy a house here, which says something about how most owners got in.
The 2021 Census, the source for every population figure here, shows how households are made up. About 31% of households are one person living alone, and within that, about 19% of all households are pensioners living alone. Couples with dependent children make up about 16% of households and lone parents about 7%. So a quiet home with one or two adults is more typical here than one with children.
Education levels are mixed. About 39% of residents have a degree-level qualification, while about 14% have no formal qualifications at all, which reflects an older population who left school when fewer people went to university. Full-time students are about 1% of residents. There's no university town feel here, and hardly any student lets.
About 113 people live in communal settings such as care homes rather than private households. That's too few to change any of the shares above, so the household figures describe the area accurately.
Brockham's residents are well off, own their homes and aren't going anywhere. It's a comfortable place to live among settled people, as long as you're happy to be one of the younger ones.