Putney is mostly young professionals who rent and earn well, plus a smaller group who bought years ago and stayed put. More households rent than own. The typical resident is in their mid-thirties. Most adults have a degree. It is a district of careers in progress, and a lot of those careers are paying somebody else's mortgage.
All the population figures here come from the 2021 census, which counted 65,946 people across 27,102 households in Putney. About 44% of households own their home, about 34% rent privately and about 20% rent from a social landlord. For a district with prices like Putney's, a landlord is the most common next-door neighbour.
The typical Putney resident is about 35, and about 37% of residents are aged between 25 and 44. The University of Roehampton is on the doorstep, and still only about 3% of residents are full-time students, so the young people here are mostly the kind with a job and a commute.
The Office for National Statistics modelled average household income across Putney at about £86,900 before tax for the financial year to March 2023. That is comfortable money for running a London life, with dinners out and a decent rent, and still a slow way to build a deposit on a house where a terrace sells for the better part of a million.
About 31% of households are one person living alone, and about 11% of all households are a single pensioner, who are counted inside that one-person group. Couples with dependent children make up about 17% of households and lone parents about 11%. More Putney households are one person than are couples raising children, which fits a district of flats.
About 59% of adults hold a degree or higher, about 11% have no formal qualifications, and about 3% are full-time students. The degree-holders set the tone of the high street, and the other tenth of the population lives alongside them, many in the social rented homes that make up a fifth of the stock.
About 88% of Putney residents described their health as good or very good at the census. Across Wandsworth, deaths from preventable causes run better than the England rate, and smoking, at about 9% of adults, is similar to the England figure. Those comparisons describe the borough and the services that cover it, and they say nothing about any individual household in Putney.
Putney is home to a young, well-qualified, well-paid population that mostly rents, plus a settled minority of owners and families. For a buyer, that adds up to a district with plenty of energy and a fairly high rate of people coming and going.