Cheshunt is mostly homeowners in their forties raising children, with a solid minority of pensioners living alone. About seven in ten own their homes. The typical resident is about forty. Household income is comfortable for a town this close to London. Renters exist, split almost evenly between landlords and the council's own housing.
Cheshunt is a town of about 45,000 people in roughly 18,200 households. About 71% of households own their home outright or with a mortgage. About 14% rent from a private landlord, and almost exactly the same share, about 14%, rent from the council or a housing association. Social tenants make up as large a group as private renters, which buyers who think of Cheshunt as purely commuter-belt rarely notice.
The typical resident is about 40, and about 27% of people are aged 25 to 44, the years of mortgages, nurseries and changing jobs. Cheshunt is neither a young town nor a retirement town. It is a town of people at the parents' evening stage of life.
Household income before tax averaged about £59,000 in the financial year to March 2023, as modelled by the Office for National Statistics across the town's neighbourhoods. That figure is gross, before tax and deductions, and it describes a year that has since gone, so a mortgage lender will work from a smaller and more recent number. It is enough for a semi and a family holiday, and not enough for a second home anywhere.
These household figures, like every population number on this page, come from the 2021 census. About 27% of households are one person living alone, and about 13% of all households are a pensioner living alone, a group included within that 27%. About 21% are couples with dependent children, and about 14% are lone parents. So Cheshunt has a lot of children and a lot of older people living on their own, and the town's services are stretched between the two.
About 27% of residents aged 16 and over hold a degree-level qualification, about 22% have no formal qualifications, and about 2% are full-time students. Many Cheshunt residents trained on the job, and many more went through a lecture hall. Very few come here to study. People arrive in Cheshunt after university, if they went at all, to find somewhere with three bedrooms and a train line.
Cheshunt's population is an ordinary mix for the commuter belt. Families, home-owners and pensioners living alone make up most of it, and very few residents are either wealthy or poor.