Dartford is mostly working households in the middle of their lives, and most of them own their homes. About two in three own. The typical resident is in their late thirties. Around a third have a degree. Couples raising children and people living alone turn up in roughly equal numbers. It is a town of mortgages and school runs, and few people here have the luxury of time on their hands.
The 2021 census counted about 70,600 people in Dartford, living in about 27,100 households, and it is the source for every population figure here. About 64% of households own their home. About 18% rent privately and about 15% rent from a social landlord, so renters are split close to evenly between the two. Most people's monthly housing bill is a mortgage payment, and only about one household in six pays a private landlord.
The median resident is 37, and about 31% of residents are aged 25 to 44, the years of first homes, young children and commuting. For many of them, retirement is still a long way off.
The Office for National Statistics models typical household income at about £65,000 a year before tax for the financial year to March 2023, averaged across the area. It counts everyone earning under one roof, so in many homes it is more than one wage added together. It is also three years old, and the cost of a terrace in town has had time to move since.
About 26% of households are one person living alone, and about 10% are a single pensioner on their own, part of that same 26%. Couples with dependent children make up about 26%, and lone parents about 13%. The person living alone and the family of four are equally common, and on the trains in the morning the two are hard to tell apart.
About 33% of residents have a degree-level qualification and about 16% have no formal qualifications. Full-time students are only about 2% of the population. North Kent College serves the town's further education, and there are too few students for the shared-house lets of a university town.
Dartford's people are an ordinary, mixed working population, neither notably well off nor struggling, and that is what a buyer here will be living among.