Royston is home to working families who own their houses and plan to stay in them. Seven in ten households own their home. The typical resident is in their early forties. Nearly four in ten adults have a degree. It is a town of commuters who have finished their twenties and settled on a mortgage within reach of Cambridge.
The 2021 Census counted 17,443 people in Royston across 7,475 households, and it is the source for every figure on this page. About 71% of households own their home, about 16% rent privately and about 12% rent from a council or housing association. Most front doors in Royston belong to the people behind them, and the landlords are a minority here.
The median resident is 41, and about 29% of residents are aged 25 to 44. That is the age band that buys the three-bedroom semi, fills the first-school playground and drives to work. Royston has too many young families to call it a retirement town, and too few twenty-somethings for much nightlife.
Gross household income averaged about £66,000 in the financial year to March 2023, an Office for National Statistics model averaged across the town's two middle-sized statistical areas. That is before tax, a few years old and spread across the whole town. It is enough for a family mortgage on a Royston semi, and it shrinks once tax and the mortgage are paid.
About 29% of households are one person living alone, and within that, about 12% are pensioners living alone. Couples with dependent children make up about 23% of households, and lone parents about 8%. Royston is mostly families and couples, with a steady minority of older residents who stayed on in the family house after everyone else left. Royston keeps both its young families and its widowers, and the dog walkers on Therfield Heath come from both.
About 39% of adults hold a degree, about 14% have no formal qualifications and about 1% are full-time students. With so few students, Royston has no university of its own. Its graduates mostly studied elsewhere and moved here later with a mortgage. Victoria Wood grew up in Royston, and the town's comedy has kept to the same dry register ever since.
The people are one of Royston's real strengths: owner-occupiers, families and graduates who mostly picked the town on purpose and have little reason to leave.