Camberwell is young, mostly renting and split down the middle on paper. About half have a degree. Most households rent, and the council or a housing association is the most common landlord. The typical resident is in their mid-thirties. It is two neighbourhoods sharing one set of streets, and the buses carry both.
At the 2021 census, which is the source for every population figure here, about 28% of Camberwell's households owned their home. About 24% rented privately and about 46% rented from the council or a housing association. In Camberwell the landlord is more likely to be public than private, and owning is the minority choice.
The median age is 34, and about 38% of residents are between 25 and 44. That is a population built around people who are working, flat-sharing, starting families or doing all three in a one-bed. Retirement is something that mostly happens in other postcodes.
The Office for National Statistics models typical household income in Camberwell at about £73,000 before tax for the financial year to March 2023. That is a household figure, so it often means two people's pay added together, and it is gross, which is the number people mention, while net is the number that pays the rent. It also sits across an area where nearly half of homes are social rented, so it describes a mix of very different budgets.
Households come in every shape. About 32% are one person living alone, and about 8% of all households are a pensioner living alone, which is part of that 32% and not added to it. Couples with dependent children make up about 12% of households, and lone parents about 18%. Families here are as likely to be one adult and the children as two, and the parks and primary schools see plenty of both.
The qualifications split matches the tenure split. About 52% of adults have a degree-level qualification, while about 15% have none at all. Full-time students make up only about 4% of residents, which is a modest share for a place that has Camberwell College of Arts in the middle of it. The graduates here have mostly finished their courses and moved on to paying London rents.
Most people report themselves healthy, with about 86% describing their health as good or very good at the census. For the wider borough, Public Health England's successor figures put Southwark close to the England average on preventable deaths and on smoking, at about 7% of adults. Those are borough-level comparisons, so they describe Southwark as a whole, not Camberwell's streets.
Camberwell's population is a middling mix of graduates and long-standing social tenants, young professionals and single parents, who live closer together than the census tables make it look. Each group is large enough that no single one sets the tone.