Poplar is home to young renters, most of them graduates, living in flats within easy reach of work. Fewer than a quarter own their home. The typical resident is in their early thirties. Half have a degree. A third live alone. Poplar is where a good share of London's graduates rent while they decide whether to stay.
Every population figure here comes from the 2021 census. In Poplar, 23% of households own their home, 42% rent privately and 32% rent from a social landlord. A buyer here is the odd one out in the lift.
The median resident is 31, and 46% of residents are aged between 25 and 44. Nearly half the district is at the age when people start talking about mortgages, and most of them are still renting.
The Office for National Statistics modelled gross household income across Poplar at about £74,000 a year before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. That is two-earner money, earned in a district where most households hand a large slice of it to a landlord.
Single-person households make up 33% of the total, and single pensioners, who are counted within that group, account for 4%. Couples with children make up 16%, and lone parents 11%. With most of the housing in one- and two-bedroom flats, a third of front doors opening on one person is about what you would expect.
Qualifications are spread wide. About 53% of residents hold a degree, 15% have no qualifications, and 4% are full-time students. Both ends of that range live in the same blocks and use the same stairwells.
Most residents report good health: about 87% describe theirs as good or very good. Across Tower Hamlets, the rate of deaths from preventable causes is similar to the England figure, and so is the smoking rate, at about 14%.
On who lives here, Poplar comes out middling. The residents are young, highly educated and well paid before tax, but most of them rent, and their fortunes range more widely than the office towers next door suggest.