Catford is home to working-age Londoners in their thirties, and they're split almost evenly between owning and renting. Just under half own their home. The other half rent, about equally from private landlords and from social landlords. The typical resident is in their late thirties. Graduates and people with no qualifications both make up a large share of the district.
The 2021 Census counted about 62,000 people in Catford, living in about 24,000 households. About 48% of households owned their home, about 26% rented privately and about 25% rented from a council or housing association. Private and social renting are almost exactly the same size here. That kind of even three-way split is less common than it sounds, and it means the same terrace can hold an owner, a private tenant and a housing association tenant.
The typical resident was 37 at the Census, and about 32% of residents were aged 25 to 44. Catford's population is concentrated in the years of first homes, young children and long commutes. It has fewer of the very old and very young than an outer suburb would.
Household income was modelled by the Office for National Statistics at about £71,400 a year before tax for the financial year to March 2023, averaged across the area. After tax and housing-related deductions, the same modelling gives about £49,300. That's a comfortable figure for a dual-income couple in a flat. It goes much less far for a household paying a London mortgage on a terraced house.
About 18% of households are headed by a lone parent, which is slightly more than the 17% made up of couples with children. Single parents outnumber two-parent families in Catford, which shapes the school run, the demand for childcare and the bus routes.
Around 30% of households are one person living alone, and about 9% are a pensioner living alone, a group included within that 30%. In practice that's a lot of one-bedroom flats and a fair number of older residents who've stayed on after the rest of the household left.
About 43% of adults hold a degree, about 18% have no formal qualifications, and only about 2% are full-time students. The two qualification figures describe very different people living in the same district. Students barely register, though, so Catford isn't shaped by a university's term dates.
About 84% of residents described their health as good or very good at the Census. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities rates Lewisham as similar to England on both preventable deaths and adult smoking, at about 9% of adults. Those are borough figures, and they say nothing specific about any particular street in Catford.
Catford is a hard-working district that is more stretched than its incomes suggest. Its residents are young, mixed and half-renting, and as a community it comes out below average, with a large share of households under financial pressure.