Maldon is a town of homeowners in their late forties, with a solid middle and few students. Seven in ten own their home. The typical resident is 47. About one household in three is someone living alone. Maldon is a place people arrive in with a mortgage and leave, eventually, with a bus pass.
The 2021 Census, the source for every population figure on this page, counts 24,068 people in 10,415 households. About 71% of households own their home, 13% rent privately and 14% rent from a council or housing association. More of Maldon rents from a social landlord than from a private one, which leaves the buy-to-let crowd surprisingly little of the town to work with.
The typical resident is 47, and about 22% of people are between 25 and 44. That puts roughly one person in five in the age bracket of the first-time buyer and the young family, so the young professional is a type Maldon has heard of without meeting very often.
Household income across Maldon averages about £61,000 a year before tax, as modelled by the Office for National Statistics for the financial year to March 2023 and averaged across the town's neighbourhoods. That is a gross figure from three years ago, so the household it describes has since met both the tax office and the price rises in between.
Lone parents head about 10% of households, a share that sits alongside a large owner-occupied majority and a social-rented sector bigger than the private one. It is a mixed town in its housing, even if the High Street makes it look all of a piece.
About 30% of households are one person living alone, and 16% are a single pensioner living alone, a group that falls inside that 30%. Couples with dependent children make up 19% of households. In a town where fewer than one household in five is a couple raising children, the school run is a minority sport, and the pensioner living alone is nearly as common a household as the family.
About 26% of residents aged 16 and over hold a degree-level qualification, 20% have no formal qualifications and 1% are full-time students. There is no university and no student quarter, so the town's late-night trade depends entirely on adults who have work in the morning.
Maldon's population is an ordinary, middling mix: owners in their forties and older, a fair number living alone, and an income that is comfortable without being remarkable.