Hayes is mostly home to middle-aged homeowners who are comfortably off. Seven in ten own their home. The typical resident is in their early forties. Household incomes are high, and so is the share of graduates. It is a suburb made up mostly of families and couples, with fewer flat-sharers and students than the inner boroughs.
Census 2021, the source for every population figure on this page, counted about 55,400 people in Hayes and the neighbourhoods around it. Of the households, 71% own their home, 19% rent privately and 9% rent from a council or housing association. That makes private renters roughly one household in five, so the rental market here is fairly small.
The median age is 41, and 28% of residents are between 25 and 44. That is a population a bit older than inner London, with plenty of people in the middle of their careers.
Modelled gross household income, before tax, averaged about £91,000 in the financial year to March 2023. That is a three-year-old model, and the figure for any one household will differ. It is enough money to afford a semi here, though a family on it still has to keep an eye on the mortgage.
Families make up a large part of Hayes. Couples with dependent children head 24% of households and lone parents 10%. Children are one of the main reasons people move here.
Single-person households make up 28% of the total, and almost half of those are pensioners living alone, at 13% of all households. Some of the three-bedroom houses here are home to one person, who moved in when the children were small and stayed after they left.
Qualifications are high. Of residents aged 16 and over, 44% hold a degree, 12% have no formal qualifications, and about 2% are full-time students. Graduates far outnumber students, so this is a place people move to after university.
At the 2021 census, 87% of residents described their health as good or very good. Across the whole of Bromley, preventable deaths and smoking rates are both better than the England average, with about 7% of adults in the borough smoking.
Hayes is a prosperous, family-dominated suburb of graduates and long-term owners, and most people who move here are joining that pattern.