Hornsey is mostly working-age graduates, and most of them rent. About six in ten hold a degree. Fewer than half own their home. The typical resident is in their late thirties. It is a district of people who finished their education some time ago and are still waiting for the housing market to finish with them.
Of the 19,150 households counted at the 2021 census, about 42% owned their home, about 36% rented privately and about 20% rented from a council or housing association. The census is the source for every population figure here. Owning is the minority arrangement in Hornsey, and private renting runs it close.
The median resident is 37, and about 39% of people are aged 25 to 44. That is the age band that builds careers, starts families and spends weekends looking at flats it cannot quite afford, and in Hornsey it is the largest single slice of the population.
The Office for National Statistics models average household income across Hornsey at about £77,200 a year before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. That is a comfortable figure on paper. It also describes a period a few years back, and the gross version always sounds bigger than the amount that lands in the account.
About 33% of households are one person living alone, and about 8% are a single pensioner living alone, a smaller group inside that same total. Couples with children make up about 17% of households and lone parents about 11%. Hornsey has more people living on their own than families with children, which fits a housing stock built mostly of flats.
About 60% of residents hold a degree, about 13% have no formal qualifications, and only about 2% are in full-time study. So the degrees were earned somewhere else and brought here afterwards. Hornsey collects graduates once they have stopped being students, which is roughly the point at which they can pay north London rent.
About 86% of residents describe their own health as good or very good. Across Haringey, preventable deaths run at a rate similar to England's, and the borough's smoking rate of about 19% is also similar to the England figure. Both comparisons are made for the whole borough, and neither marks Haringey out in either direction.
Hornsey's population is educated, working-age and reasonably well off, with a strong lean towards renting and living alone. As neighbourhoods go, it is a solid one to be part of, made up of people at the busy middle of their lives.