Pirbright is really two populations: settled homeowners and an Army training centre full of recruits. Seven in ten households own their home. Incomes are comfortable, even before the house prices are counted. More than 1,500 residents live in the camp rather than in houses. The young median age belongs to the camp, and the mortgages belong to the village.
All population figures here come from the 2021 census unless stated otherwise. About 69% of households own their home, about 22% rent privately and about 9% rent from a social landlord. Private renters don't have much choice in a village made almost entirely of houses, so the few who rent here usually rent a whole family home.
The median age is 34, which is far younger than a walk down the lanes would suggest. The reason is Army Training Centre Pirbright, whose recruits in their late teens pull the median down. About 25% of residents are aged 25 to 44. Leave the camp out and the village is older and more settled than the headline age implies.
Modelled median household income was about £79,000 before tax in the financial year to March 2023. That describes household finances at that time, not today's pay packets, and it's gross. It's a comfortable figure, and still not enough on its own to buy a typical local house without equity from a previous sale.
Families make up a large share of households. Couples with dependent children account for about 26%, and lone parents about 6%. About 22% of households are one person living alone, and about 12% are pensioners living alone, who are part of that 22%, not in addition to it. The village has plenty of school runs and a fair number of older residents who have lived in the same house for decades.
About 34% of residents hold a degree-level qualification and about 12% have no qualifications. Full-time students come out at about 2%, but that census measure only counts students who also work or are looking for work. It badly undercounts a place whose largest group of young people are in military training, and it says nothing about the camp.
The communal figure changes how everything else should be read. About 1,540 of the roughly 7,680 people counted live in communal establishments rather than private households, and in Pirbright that means the training centre. Any figure that counts people rather than households, age above all, is heavily skewed by the recruits. The household figures on tenure, family make-up and income describe the village much more accurately.
The community is one of Pirbright's strengths: settled, comfortable and family-heavy, with a training camp that changes the headline figures without changing what the village is like to live in.