East Barnet is mostly homeowners in early middle age, with a solid layer of renters among them. Two in three households own their home. The typical resident is in their early forties. Nearly half have a degree. Incomes are comfortable, and the place has more of a mix than its semis suggest.
At the 2021 Census, the source for every population figure here, East Barnet had 31,645 residents in 12,264 households. About 66% of households owned their home, about 25% rented privately and about 9% rented from a council or housing association. A quarter renting privately keeps the letting boards up, and with students only about 2% of residents, those tenants are mostly working adults.
The median age is 41, and about 26% of residents are aged 25 to 44. This is a place full of people with a career well under way and a mortgage that still has years to run.
The Office for National Statistics models average household income across East Barnet's neighbourhoods at about £79,000 a year before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. That is a gross, modelled figure from a few years back. It describes the salaries on paper, and what reaches the bank after tax and a north London mortgage is a smaller and more private number.
Lone parents head about 12% of East Barnet's households, a figure that matters in a suburb whose house prices assume two earners.
Looking at the households more closely, about 27% are one person living alone, and within that about 12% of all households are a single pensioner. Couples with dependent children make up about 23%. Families and people living alone share the same roads, and the school run and the solo trip to the shops start from neighbouring front doors.
Education is mixed. About 45% of adults hold a degree-level qualification and about 16% have no qualifications at all. That spread is wide, and it reflects a suburb where people who arrived with university degrees live alongside people who have been here longer and came by a different route.
Health is good. About 85% of residents describe their health as good or very good. For Barnet as a whole, the borough's preventable mortality rate is better than England's, and its smoking rate, at about 8%, is similar to the England figure.
East Barnet is home to a broadly comfortable middle, mostly owners and mostly working, with renters, lone parents and pensioners living alone making up the rest. It is a solid suburb, and an ordinary one by London standards.