Melbourn is mostly home to mid-life homeowners who are well qualified and comfortably off, with a real share of social housing alongside them. About seven in ten households own their home. Nearly one in five rents from the council or a housing association. The typical resident is in their mid-forties. Four in ten adults have a degree.
All the figures here come from the 2021 Census unless a different source is named, and they cover the Melbourn area, about 8,300 residents across Melbourn, Meldreth, Shepreth and Fowlmere. About 68% of households own their home, around 19% rent from a council or housing association, and only about 10% rent privately. Social renters outnumber private renters here, which surprises anyone who expected a Cambridgeshire village with its own village college to be made up entirely of owner-occupiers.
The median age is 44, and about 24% of residents are between 25 and 44. That is a population at the stage of extending its houses, and in Melbourn extending is the hard part.
The Office for National Statistics models typical gross household income here at about £68,000 a year before tax for the financial year to March 2023. The figure is an average of two neighbourhood areas, not anyone's payslip, and it is a few years old. It is enough to carry a family mortgage on an ordinary semi, and not enough to make a detached house an easy decision.
Couples with dependent children make up about 22% of households, and lone parents about 8%. That is enough families to keep two village primaries and a village college busy without the whole place feeling like a school run.
About 27% of households are one person living alone, and around 14% are a pensioner living alone, a group that sits inside that 27% and is not added to it. Single pensioners account for a large share of the people living alone, which fits a place where people arrive in middle age and then don't leave.
About 41% of adults hold a degree or equivalent, and around 15% have no formal qualifications, so the village has both. Full-time students make up about 1% of residents. Cambridge has plenty of students, and almost none of them live in Melbourn.
The people of Melbourn are a strong, steady mix: well qualified, mostly homeowners, comfortably off before tax, with a social housing share large enough that the village is more varied than its house prices suggest.