Mostly young families who own their homes. Seven in ten households own. The typical resident is in their late thirties. Nearly a third of households are couples raising children. The rest is a fairly ordinary Essex mix of renters, retired people and single parents.
Ownership dominates, and renting mostly means a social landlord. Census 2021, the source for every population figure here, found about 72% of Great Leighs' 960 households owning their home. About 10% rented privately and about 15% rented from a council or housing association, so the social landlord is the bigger of the two. For a commuter village of new estates, the buy-to-let investors have left Great Leighs largely alone.
The village is young for its age. The median resident of Great Leighs is 37, and about 27% of the 2,590 people living here are aged 25 to 44, the years of mortgages, nurseries and first school runs. The parish church goes back to the late 12th century, while the typical parishioner was born in the 1980s.
Household incomes are high. The Office for National Statistics models median household income for the neighbourhood around Great Leighs at about £70,500 before tax in the financial year to March 2023. That is a modelled average for a wider area than the village, from three years ago, and before tax and the mortgage take their share. It still describes two decent salaries, and on these house prices most households need both.
Families are the main household type. About 30% of households are couples with children and about 13% are lone parents. Together that puts children in roughly two households in five, and the closes show it at about half past three on a school day.
Fewer people live alone than in most Essex villages with a church this old. About 18% of households are one person living alone, and within that, about 8% of all households are a single pensioner. The retired couple rattling around a four-bedroom house exists here, but the new estates were built for families, and families filled them.
Qualifications are broad, without leaning either way. About 30% of adults hold a degree or equivalent, about 12% have no formal qualifications, and full-time students make up about 2% of residents. The village is a mix of trades, office jobs and professions, all living on the same estates and heading to work at the same time.
Great Leighs is a middling, comfortable sort of place, made up of working families with mortgages and two jobs, without being especially rich or especially stretched.