Hemel Hempstead is mostly working families in early middle age, the people the new town was built for and their successors. Close to six in ten own their homes. About a quarter rent from social landlords. The typical resident is in their late thirties. Hemel still has the make-up of a planned town, a little older than when it was planned.
The 2021 census, which is the source for every population figure here, counted about 98,700 people in about 40,100 households. About 58% of households own their home, about 15% rent privately and about 26% rent from a social landlord. In 1950 the first keys in Adeyfield went to tenants, and the town's founding plan still shows in the tenancy agreements of one household in four.
The median age is 39, and about 30% of residents are aged between 25 and 44. That is the decade or two when people are raising children and paying off mortgages, and the town's three-bedroom houses and primary schools fit those years well.
The Office for National Statistics models the typical household income at about £63,800 before tax for the financial year to March 2023, averaged across the town's areas, and about £46,900 after tax. It's enough to carry a Hemel mortgage, but not enough to stop checking the bank balance before the car needs replacing.
About 28% of households are one person living alone, and about 11% are a single pensioner, a group counted within that 28%. About 22% are couples with dependent children and about 13% are lone-parent households. Hemel's households are mostly young families, with older people living alone in the homes their families grew up in.
About 33% of residents aged 16 and over hold a degree-level qualification, about 16% have no formal qualifications and about 2% are full-time students. Hemel's main campus is a further education college, so the town has no large student population. It is a town of graduates and school-leavers working alongside each other.
Hemel is home to an ordinary mix of people. They are mostly working families, mostly in their thirties and forties, and a little more of them rent than a buyer from the villages around it might expect.