Forest Hill is home mostly to graduates in their thirties and early forties, split close to evenly between owners and renters. About half own. A quarter rent privately and a fifth rent from a social landlord. More than half hold a degree. It is a district full of people who have done the sums and are still doing them.
The 2021 census, the source for every population figure on this page, counts about 38,700 residents in the area. About 52% of households own their home, about 25% rent privately and about 22% rent from a council or housing association. That spread keeps the place mixed in a way many London neighbourhoods have quietly lost, with buyers, private tenants and social tenants often living on the same street.
The typical resident is 36, and about 38% of residents are aged between 25 and 44. That is the age band in which people stop sharing and start looking at two-beds, and in Forest Hill they are looking at two-beds that each have half a dozen other people their age also looking.
The Office for National Statistics models household income across the area at about £81,000 a year before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. A gross figure for a whole household is easy to misread, so no national comparison is set against it here. On the hill, it means two decent salaries, and still not enough for the semi most of them are scrolling past.
The households here are a mix. About 29% are people living alone, and about 8% are pensioners living alone, part of that same group. About 20% are couples with children and about 14% are lone-parent households. Families and single people turn up in roughly the proportions a city suburb with a lot of flats would lead anyone to expect.
About 57% of residents have a degree, about 11% have no qualifications and about 2% are full-time students. The graduates finished university somewhere else and came here to start paying off the loan.
Most people say they are well. About 87% of residents described their health as good or very good in the census. Across Lewisham as a whole, the rates of smoking and of deaths that could have been prevented are both similar to England's. Neither is unusual, in either direction.
Forest Hill's population is better qualified and better paid than most of south London, and still mixed enough that the person next door may be renting, owning, or living in a home the council owns. It is a place for people in the thick of working life who want a park, a train and neighbours who are not all alike.