Older than the holiday brochures imply, and renting far more than a small seaside town is supposed to. Just over half own their homes. Close to a third rent privately. Nearly four in ten households are one person living on their own. This is not a retirement enclave and it is not a young town, it is a working town with an older middle and a very large number of single front doors.
The 2021 census, which is the source for the population figures throughout this answer, puts owner-occupation at about 57%. Around 32% rent privately and about 11% rent socially. A private rented sector approaching a third is a genuinely high share for a town this size, and it is the clearest sign in the data that Ilfracombe's housing stock has been shaped by a resort economy rather than by a commuter one.
The typical resident is 48. The 25 to 44 age band accounts for about 21% of the population, which makes it the thin part of the profile rather than the thick part. In most towns that band is the engine of the rental market. Here it is the group the town has the least of, sitting between an older majority and the households raising children.
On income, modelled figures put the median household at about £38,800 gross, before tax, and roughly £31,200 once tax comes off. Those describe the financial year to March 2023 rather than today, which matters given everything that has happened to prices since. Read them as the shape of local earning rather than the current state of anyone's bank account.
Household make-up is where the town is genuinely distinctive. About 38% of households are a single person, and within that, roughly 17% of all households are a pensioner living alone. Couples with children make up about 14%, and lone parent households about 12%. That first number is the one to sit with: a town where nearly two in five homes contain one person has a different rhythm from a town of family semis, and it shows up in everything from the size of the flats to who is about on a weekday morning.
Qualifications split about as evenly as they can. Around 25% hold a degree-level qualification and about 20% hold none at all, with full-time students at roughly 1%. Two fairly large groups at either end and a substantial middle between them is what a town with light engineering, a harbour, a tourist trade and no university looks like on a census form. It is a mix, not a hierarchy, and anyone reading it as one is bringing that with them.
For completeness, 196 people out of a population of 9,830 live in communal establishments rather than private households, so care homes and similar settings are not distorting the household figures in any meaningful way.
The social and economic profile is one of the weaker parts of Ilfracombe's case: incomes are modest, the private rented sector is large, and a very high share of households are single people rather than the dual-income buyers who typically underpin a local market.