Cheltenham is mostly home to homeowners in early middle age with degrees and decent salaries. About six in ten own their home. The typical resident is forty. More than four in ten have a degree. This is a town that has done well and would rather you noticed than heard it say so.
Every population figure here comes from the 2021 Census, which counted 118,319 people in Cheltenham. About 63% of households own their home, about 24% rent privately, and about 12% rent from a council or housing association. Private renting is common enough that a quarter of the street may be on a tenancy agreement.
The median age is 40, and about 27% of residents are aged 25 to 44. That is a town with grown-ups in charge and plenty of people in their working years, in no sense a retirement town.
Pay is good. The Office for National Statistics models typical gross household income, before tax, at about £56,500 for the financial year to March 2023. That is an estimate for the area and it is now a few years old, but it describes households that can afford Cheltenham's terraces and semis. The detached houses on the hillside are mostly bought with money from an earlier sale.
Households take every shape. About 35% are one person living alone, and about 14% of all households are a single pensioner, a group already counted inside that 35%. Couples with dependent children make up about 18%, and lone parents about 9%. Someone living alone is a more common household here than a couple with children. Families are present without dominating, and a lot of Cheltenham's front doors open on a single occupant.
Cheltenham is well qualified. About 43% of residents have a degree, about 13% have no qualifications, and about 3% are full-time students. The University of Gloucestershire has several campuses here and its students barely register, which says the town is lived in more by graduates than by undergraduates. The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, which handles the country's university applications, has a site in and around Cheltenham, and the town looks as if it applied through it.
About 3,614 people live in communal settings and not in private homes, in care homes, halls and similar. The area has 33 care homes, and with three public schools founded in the Victorian era, some of the rest will be boarders. They are counted in the population but not among the households, so the tenure and household shares above describe the town's private homes only.
Cheltenham's people are one of its assets. Well educated and mostly comfortable, with enough renters, people living alone and working-age residents to keep the town lively, they are a strong reason the place works as well as it does.