Settled homeowners in their middle years, mostly. Nine in ten own their home. The typical resident is in their mid-forties. Renters are hard to find. Cliffe Woods is where people come once they've stopped moving and started extending.
The 2021 Census, the source for every population figure here, counts 2,689 people in 1,029 households. About 89% of households own their home. Only about 6% rent privately, with about 5% in social housing. In a village like this, the "to let" board is a rare sight, and the "sold" board usually belongs to someone who has lived here for twenty years.
The typical resident is 46, and about 22% of people are aged 25 to 44. That's not a retirement village and it's not a starter-home suburb. It's the stretch of life where the mortgage is still going and the lawnmower has become a personality.
Modelled household income across the area averaged about £59,700 a year before tax in the financial year to March 2023. That's a gross figure from a few years back, not a current payslip, but it matches what the housing implies: two earners, steady jobs and a monthly direct debit to a builder.
Families are a solid part of the picture. About 25% of households are couples with dependent children, and about 7% are lone parents. Plenty of households here still have school shoes lined up by the door.
At the other end, about 19% of households are one person living alone, and about 11% are pensioners living alone, who are included in that 19%. People who bought here decades ago tend to stay once the children have left, which is how a four-bed house ends up with one person and a lot of spare bedrooms. Nobody in Cliffe Woods downsizes. They just stop using the upstairs.
On qualifications, about 23% of residents hold a degree, about 16% have no formal qualifications, and full-time students make up about 1%. It's a practical mix: people who trained on the job are as common as those who went to university, and the student flatshare hasn't been invented here.
About 85% of residents describe their health as good or very good. At council level, Medway's preventable mortality rate is worse than the England average, while its smoking rate is similar to England's. Those are figures for the whole local authority, not for this village, and they describe the borough the local health services are run for.
The people are one of Cliffe Woods' better points: settled owners, working families and long-term residents in a place where people put down roots, which is good news if you want neighbours and bad news if you want a buyer to move on so you can have their house.