Byfleet is mostly homeowners in their forties with a degree and two cars on the drive. Seven in ten own their home. The typical resident is 43. Nearly half hold a degree. It is what Surrey looks like when nobody is trying to impress anyone.
All of the population figures here come from the 2021 census, which counted 16,005 people in Byfleet living in 6,409 households. About 72% of households own their home, outright or with a mortgage. About 20% rent privately and about 8% rent from a council or housing association. With ownership that high, most of the houses on a Byfleet street have been occupied by the same people for years.
The median resident is 43. About 26% of residents are aged 25 to 44, the age group most likely to be raising children or moving house. It is a village in the middle of life, with enough young families to fill the primary schools and enough older residents to keep everything well maintained.
Modelled household income before tax averaged about £75,000 a year in Byfleet in the financial year to March 2023. That is the Office for National Statistics' estimate for the area's statistical districts, and it describes a year that has passed. Gross is the figure people quote at dinner parties, and the net figure is the one the mortgage is paid from.
About 28% of households are a single person living alone, and about 13% are a pensioner living alone, a group counted within the single-person figure. Couples with dependent children make up about 25% of households, and lone parents about 9%. The mix is close to even between quiet single households and busy family ones.
About 44% of residents aged 16 and over hold a degree or equivalent, and about 13% have no formal qualifications at all. Full-time students are about 1% of the population, which suits a village with no university and no student lets. The young people raised here mostly study somewhere else and come back years later, if they come back at all.
Byfleet's population is one of its strengths. It is settled, well qualified and largely self-sufficient, the sort of place where the neighbours have been there longest and will happily tell you which year they arrived.