Mostly settled homeowners in the middle of life, with their moving days behind them. About seven in ten own their home. The typical resident is in their mid-forties. Incomes are comfortable. There are hardly any students. People come here to stay rather than to start out.
The 2021 Census is the source for every population figure below. It counted 28,210 people in East Grinstead, and about 72% of households own their home. About 17% rent privately and about 10% rent from a council or housing association. The landlord who lives in the flat above the shop is outnumbered here by the owner who's paid off half the mortgage and is now deciding on the extension.
The median age is 45. People aged 25 to 44 make up about 24% of residents. So this isn't a town of pensioners, and it isn't one of young renters either. The largest group are people who stopped being young renters some time ago, and a fair few of them still describe themselves as recently moved in.
Household income is comfortable. The Office for National Statistics models gross household income, before tax, at about £68,100 for the financial year to March 2023. That figure is modelled for the area rather than counted from payslips, and it describes that year rather than today. It's enough to explain the two cars and the conversations about which school.
The census counted 12,058 households, almost all of them private homes. Only 254 people lived in communal settings such as care homes, too few to change how the other shares read.
Among those households, about 30% are one person living alone, and about 14% of all households are a single pensioner living alone, who are part of that 30%, not extra to it. Couples with dependent children make up about 21% and lone parents about 9%. This is a spread of household types rather than a family-only suburb or a retirement town. Any street will have a young family, a retired widow and at least one couple who've been meaning to downsize since 2019.
On qualifications, about 35% of adults hold a degree and about 13% have no formal qualifications. Full-time students make up about 2% of residents. That's an educated, working town without a university to fill it with students, so there are no halls of residence on the high street and not many takeaways open past eleven.
The people are one of East Grinstead's real strengths: settled, comfortably off, well qualified and rooted in the town. Newcomers fit in by staying, which is what almost everyone here has already done.