East Ham belongs to young working households, most of whom pay someone else for the roof over them. The typical resident is in their early thirties. About six in ten households rent. A quarter are couples bringing up children. The district is full of people at the busy end of life, in homes with not quite enough room for it.
The 2021 Census, the source for every population figure here, counted about 87,400 people in East Ham across 25,631 households. About 37% of households own their home and about 37% rent privately, with social renters making up a further 25%. Owners are a minority in their own district, level with the private tenants and outnumbered by renters of both kinds together.
The median resident is 33, and about 33% of the population is aged between 25 and 44. That age band carries the commute, the rent and the school run all at once, and in East Ham it is a third of everyone.
The Office for National Statistics models typical household income across East Ham at about £62,000 a year before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. That is a household figure, often earned by more than one adult, and averaged across the area's neighbourhoods, so it describes a typical house more than a typical payslip.
About 24% of households count as overcrowded, meaning they have fewer bedrooms than the people in them need. In a district where the commonest home has three bedrooms, that tells you how many of those bedrooms are shared.
Families make up the biggest group. About 26% of households are couples with children and about 15% are lone parents with children. About 19% are one person living alone, and about 6% of all households are a single pensioner, part of that same group. East Ham is a place where children outnumber quiet evenings.
About 34% of residents aged 16 and over hold a degree, and about 23% have no formal qualifications. Full-time students make up about 5%. The two ends of the qualifications scale are both well represented, and the middle is where most of East Ham's working lives are lived.
About 84% of residents describe their health as good or very good. Across Newham as a whole, the rate of deaths from preventable causes is similar to England's, and so is the share of adults who smoke, at about 11%.
East Ham's residents are young, working and mostly renting, and the district hands them less space and fewer front-door keys than most places would. That makes it a hard place to put down roots, whatever the people living in it bring.