Buckhurst Hill is home to well-off homeowners in the middle of their working lives. Seven in ten own their home. The typical resident is in their early forties. Nearly half have a degree, and incomes are high. Students and short-stay renters are a small minority.
The 2021 census, the source of every population figure here, found about 73% of Buckhurst Hill's households owning their home, outright or with a mortgage. About 19% rent from a private landlord and about 7% from a social landlord. The rented flats keep a little turnover going, but most of the town is owned by the people who live in it.
The typical resident is 42, and about 27% of residents are aged 25 to 44, the years of first homes and young children. Buckhurst Hill is a town in the middle of its mortgage.
Money is not the problem. The Office for National Statistics models gross household income at about £79,600 a year before tax for the financial year to March 2023, an average across the area that dates from a few years back. Before tax, that is a household that can take a Central line season ticket and a forest-edge mortgage in its stride.
Households here are not all the families the houses suggest. About 28% of households are one person living alone, and about 13% are a single pensioner, who are counted within that same group. Couples with children make up about 24% of households, and lone parents about 10%. More households are one person than are a couple raising children, in a town where a third of homes have four bedrooms or more.
The qualifications are spread wide. About 44% of residents hold a degree-level qualification and about 14% have no formal qualifications, so the town mixes graduates with people who built their working lives another way. Full-time students account for about 1% of residents, so the university years happen somewhere else down the line, and people come back once they can afford the deposit.
The people are one of Buckhurst Hill's real strengths. They own their homes, earn well and are mostly in the years when they put down roots.