Faversham is lived in by people who have already made their big decisions. Two in three households own their home. The typical resident is in their mid-forties. Three in ten households are one person living alone. About a third of adults hold a degree. It is a town of people who have settled, not people still passing through.
All the population figures here come from the 2021 Census unless stated otherwise. At that point, 66% of households owned their home, 16% rented privately and 16% rented from a council or housing association. The two rented sectors are the same size, which is unusual. A town with a landlord on every corner would look very different. Here, renting is the minority arrangement and ownership is the default.
The median age is 44, and 24% of residents are aged 25 to 44. That is a grown-up town, not a young one. The people who pushed buggies up the high street a decade ago are now the ones on the school run in the car.
Gross household income, before tax, averaged about £57,000 across the area in the financial year to March 2023. That is a modelled figure for that year, not today's wage. It is enough to support the ownership levels above, but not so much that anyone here should be mistaken for being flush.
Families are not the majority. Couples with children make up 19% of households and lone parents 12%. The bigger single group is people living on their own, at 30% of households, and that includes the 16% of households made up of one pensioner living alone. Those shares overlap and should not be added together. A town where nearly a third of front doors open onto one person has a different pace from one full of families. The Saturday market is busier than the soft-play centre.
About 31% of adults have a degree-level qualification, while 20% have no formal qualifications at all. Full-time students make up 1% of residents. That is a wide spread, with the graduate who works from home and the tradesperson who left school at sixteen living on the same street. This mix is a large part of why the pubs work and the town has not become a dormitory.
Only 102 people live in communal settings such as care homes rather than private households, out of a population of 21,321. That is too few to change any of the shares above.
Faversham's population is average, and not in a bad way: mixed, established and middle-aged, a place where people come to buy and stay rather than to try somewhere out.