Settled homeowners in their middle years, mostly. Seven in ten own their home. The typical resident is in their mid-forties. Students barely register. These are people who have stopped browsing property sites, except to check what their own house is worth.
Ownership sets the tone. About 71% of households own their home, about 15% rent privately and about 13% rent from a social landlord. With renting that far in the minority, the town's rhythm is set by people planning to stay long enough to regret the kitchen they put in.
The median resident is about 46, and people aged 25 to 44 make up about 23% of the population. It is a town of the middle decades: old enough to own a lawnmower, young enough to still be paying off the car.
Household income averaged about £60,100 before tax in the financial year to March 2023, on the Office for National Statistics' modelled estimate for the area. That is a gross figure from three years ago, not a current salary, but it points to comfortable two-earner households rather than anyone living on the edge.
The household mix, from the 2021 Census like every population figure here, is broader than the family-town label suggests. Couples with children make up about 20% of households and lone parents about 10%. Single-person households account for about 29%, and within that group, about 13% of all households are pensioners living alone. The school gates and the quiet cul-de-sacs belong to the same town, and both are well represented.
The qualifications mix is broad, too. About 31% of residents hold a degree-level qualification, about 15% have no formal qualifications, and full-time students are about 1%. There is no university crowd and no graduate enclave, just a spread you'd expect of a working market town where a trade and a degree pay about the same mortgage.
On self-reported health, about 82% of residents describe theirs as good or very good. At Wiltshire's council-area level, which covers far more than this town, the preventable mortality rate is better than England's and smoking, at about 8%, is similar to England's. Those are county benchmarks, not a measure of this town's residents, and they describe the system people live under more than the people themselves.
Of the 14,098 residents, 139 live in communal settings such as care homes rather than private households. That is too few to change how any of the shares above should be read.
The people who live here are one of the town's real strengths: settled, comfortably off and invested in staying. The only real churn comes from the occasional owner checking what the neighbours' house sold for.