Maidstone is home to people with a mortgage, a car or two and no interest in being fashionable. Six in ten own their home. The typical resident is under forty. Couples with children outnumber pensioners living alone by a distance. It's a town of people who got on with things and would like the council to do the same.
About 62% of households own their home, about 20% rent privately and about 16% rent from a council or housing association. That's a town mostly owned by the people who live in it, with a big enough rented share that plenty of the neighbours are passing through, saving up, or both.
The median age is 39, and about 29% of residents are between 25 and 44. That's the age when people have a mortgage, a toddler or two, and a firm opinion about school admissions. There are older residents too, but the town isn't run by them, which is more than some of its villages can say.
Typical household income was about £61,000 before tax in the financial year to March 2023, a modelled Office for National Statistics figure averaged across the area. It describes three years ago, not today, and it's a gross figure, so the amount landing in the bank each month is smaller. It's enough to buy a family house here with some stretching, which is exactly what a lot of residents appear to have done.
The household figures here come from the 2021 census, as do all the population figures on this page. About 28% of households are one person living alone, and about 11% of all households are a pensioner living alone, which is part of that 28%, not on top of it. Couples with dependent children make up about 22% of households, and lone parents about 11%. That's a real spread: families in the semis, people living alone in the flats, and older residents in the bungalows who've watched the town change around them and have opinions about the car parks.
About 29% of adults hold a degree-level qualification, about 18% have no formal qualifications, and about 2% are full-time students. That's a working town with a mix of routes into work, not a university town and not a commuter enclave for graduates. The student share is low enough that term time makes no visible difference to the streets.
Maidstone's population is middling in the best sense: settled, mostly owner-occupied, a bit younger than you'd expect for a county town, and hard to stereotype because it covers most kinds of household. If you want neighbours who are much like you, you'll find some here, whoever you are.