Herne Hill is home to educated people in their thirties, about half of whom rent. Fewer than half own their home. Two-thirds have a degree. Households earn well, on paper at least. The surprise is how many still rent from the council or a housing association, which keeps the district more mixed than its house prices would suggest.
Owners make up about 44% of Herne Hill's households, private renters about 25% and social renters, who rent from a council or housing association, about 29%. For all the talk about London becoming a city of private landlords, the private landlord is the smallest of the three groups here.
The median resident is 36, and about 37% of residents are aged between 25 and 44. Herne Hill is a district that does most of its living in its thirties, and the population figures here come from the 2021 census unless stated otherwise.
The Office for National Statistics models median household income across Herne Hill at about £82,000 before tax for the financial year to March 2023, averaged over the neighbourhoods that make up the area. That figure is gross and three years old, so the money left after tax and mortgage looks smaller than the headline. It is still a comfortable number in a district where many households are couples, and both of them work.
The census records about 28% of households as one person living alone, and within that, about 8% of all households are a single pensioner. Couples with dependent children make up about 18% of households, and lone parents about 13%. Herne Hill is not overrun with families, nor empty of them. Most households here are adults sharing a flat, couples without children, or someone living alone.
About 64% of residents aged 16 and over hold a degree or equivalent qualification, about 10% have no qualifications and only about 2% are full-time students. The studying was done somewhere else, and Herne Hill is where the graduates came afterwards to pay rent.
At the census, about 88% of residents described their health as good or very good, and about 4% as bad or very bad, a reasonable showing for a young district. The wider borough is a closer match for England as a whole: across Lambeth, deaths from preventable causes run at a rate similar to England's, and about 11% of adults smoke, again a share similar to the national figure.
Herne Hill's residents are, in short, a better-off-than-average mix of graduates, renters and social tenants, younger than most and healthier than they need to be at their age.