Settled, educated people in the middle of their careers, who bought the house and have no plans to leave it. Six in ten own their home. Nearly half have a degree. The typical resident is forty. This is a town of people who've made the big decision and moved on to arguing about the details.
The 2021 Census is the source for everything on this page, covering about 54,000 residents across roughly 23,400 households. About 60% of households own their home, and about 25% rent privately, with a further 14% in social housing. Home ownership is the norm, not a universal rule. The private renters are mostly in the flats carved out of the big Victorian houses, paying for the address while the owners pay for the garden.
The median age is 40, and about 29% of residents are between 25 and 44. That's not a retirement town and not a young one either. It's the age at which people stop moving for the job and start moving for the catchment.
Household income was modelled at about £67,000 before tax, averaged across the area's neighbourhoods for the financial year to March 2023. That's a gross figure from an ONS model, not a current salary survey, and it's a few years old. It's also a comfortable one, and the town's shopping streets are built around it.
About 32% of households are one person living alone, and about 12% of households are a pensioner living alone, a group that sits inside that 32%, not on top of it. Couples with dependent children make up about 23% of households, and lone parents about 9%. So the town isn't all families. It has a large solo contingent, split between young renters in the flats and older owners in houses that were once full.
About 46% of adults hold a degree-level qualification, about 12% have no formal qualifications and about 1% are full-time students. With no university in the town itself, the student share stays small, and the town gets its graduates by importing them at about 35 rather than training them at 19.
About 500 residents live in communal settings such as care homes rather than private households. That's too few to change how any of the shares above should be read.
The people are one of the town's strengths: stable, well qualified and financially comfortable, if not especially young. Newcomers fit in quickly, provided they arrive with opinions about the school run.