Halling is home to owner-occupiers in early middle age who bought and stayed. Eight in ten own their home. The typical resident is in their forties. Renters are a small minority. Most people here made their big life decisions some time ago and are paying them off.
All the population figures on this page come from the 2021 Census unless stated otherwise. About 81% of Halling households own their home, about 11% rent privately and about 6% rent from a social landlord. The buy-to-let crowd have largely left this village alone, and the owners seem happy with that.
The median resident is 43, and about 25% of residents are aged 25 to 44. That leaves Halling somewhere between the young-family rush and the retirement bungalow. It isn't old, but it isn't a place you'd come for a night out either.
Household income, modelled by the Office for National Statistics for the wider area, averaged about £61,000 before tax in the financial year to March 2023. That's a gross figure from a few years ago, not today's pay packet. It describes comfortable working households rather than a commuter-belt money pit.
Halling had 2,660 residents across 1,072 households, with everyone living in an ordinary household rather than a care home, barracks or halls of residence. The village is made of houses and the families in them.
About 24% of households are one person living alone, including about 11% who are pensioners living alone. Couples with dependent children make up about 23% of households and lone parents about 9%. That's a village where the school run and the lone pensioner's front garden sit on the same road, and neither dominates.
About 25% of residents hold a degree, about 15% have no formal qualifications and about 1% are full-time students. It's a mixed, practical population, with graduates and non-graduates in similar numbers, and students barely registering. Anyone looking for a university-town buzz is in the wrong village.
About 84% of residents describe their health as good or very good, and about 4% as bad or very bad. Across Medway as a whole, the rate of preventable deaths is worse than the England average and smoking, at about 11% of adults, is similar to England. Those are council-area figures with an England comparison, not measurements of Halling's own residents.
Halling's population is middling in the best sense: settled homeowners, sensible incomes and a mix of households, with nothing extreme at either end.