Horley is lived in by people with a mortgage and a lanyard. Seven in ten own their home. The typical resident is forty. Students are close to extinct. It is a town of people who know where the stopcock is.
Every figure on this page comes from the 2021 census unless it says otherwise. About 70% of Horley's households own their home, outright or with a mortgage, and about 17% rent privately, with around 10% in social housing. That is an owner's town. The private rental market exists, mostly in the flats near the station, but the landlord-heavy churn of a university town or a seaside resort is absent. People buy here, and then they stay long enough to repaint the hallway twice.
The median age is 40, and about 30% of residents are aged 25 to 44. That is the mid-career bracket: old enough to have a pension statement they pretend not to read, young enough to still be hauling car seats in and out of a hatchback. Horley is neither a retirement town nor a starter town. It is the bit in the middle where people get on with it.
Household income before tax averaged about £64,000 in the financial year to March 2023, on the Office for National Statistics' modelled estimate. That is a gross figure for whole households, often two earners, and it describes a few years ago rather than today's payslips. It is the income of people who can afford the town, provided nobody gets ambitious about the kitchen.
The household mix is spread wide. About 26% of households are one person living alone, and within that, about 12% of all households are a single pensioner. Couples with dependent children make up about 24%, and lone parents about 10%. No single household type runs the place. The family estate and the retired widower's bungalow sit on the same road, and both put the bins out on the right day.
Qualifications are mixed in the ordinary way. About 34% of adults hold a degree or equivalent, and about 14% have no formal qualifications. Full-time students make up about 1% of residents, which in a town with no sixth form and no university is exactly as rare as it sounds. The degree holders commute. The rest often work locally or at the airport. Both groups end up at the same school gates.
About 407 people live in care homes and similar communal settings rather than private households, too few to shift any of the shares above.
Horley's population is middling in the most literal sense: middle-aged, mid-income, mostly homeowners, neither struggling nor showing off. Anyone looking for a scene will be disappointed, and anyone looking for neighbours who return a borrowed ladder will not.