Hackney Central's residents are young, educated and mostly renting. Only about one household in four owns its home. The typical resident is in their mid-thirties. More than half have a degree. Owning your own front door makes you unusual on most streets.
At the 2021 Census, the source for every population figure here, about 23% of households in Hackney Central owned their home. About 32% rented privately and about 41% rented from a council or housing association. Two kinds of renting live side by side, with long-standing social tenancies on the estates and shorter private lets in the converted terraces. A buyer here joins the smallest of the three groups.
The typical resident is about 34, and about 46% of residents are aged 25 to 44. The whole area of about 46,900 people is weighted towards the years of first jobs, second jobs and wondering when to buy. Most of them are still wondering.
Typical household income comes to about £68,700 a year before tax, in an Office for National Statistics model for the financial year to March 2023. That is a gross figure, and it is a few years old. In 1727 Daniel Defoe described Hackney as a retreat for wealthy citizens. The citizens are still well paid, but most of them now rent.
Households here are small and varied. About 35% are one person living alone, and about 7% are pensioners living alone, who are counted within that single-person share. Couples with children make up about 11% of households and lone parents about 15%. About 11% of households are overcrowded. Families are here, but the one-bedroom flat sets the tone of the place.
About 57% of residents hold a degree-level qualification, about 14% have no qualifications and about 3% are full-time students. Those figures sit side by side in the same streets. Graduates and residents without qualifications share the same bus stops, the same parks and often the same building. In spite of the area's student-flat reputation, only a small share of residents are in full-time study.
On health, about 84% of residents described their health as good or very good at the census. For the whole of Hackney, the borough's rate of deaths from preventable causes comes to about 156 per 100,000, which public health figures class as similar to England. The borough's smoking rate of about 15% is also rated similar to England.
The people of Hackney Central make up a middling picture, with young graduates on good salaries alongside an area that is still more deprived than most. On the whole they rent.