Sidcup is mostly homeowners in early middle age, on solid incomes, with a mix of young families and older people living alone. About two in three own their home. The typical resident is in their early forties. Students are few and far between. Most of the town is settled, mortgaged and staying put.
About 65% of Sidcup's households own their home. Of those who rent, 17% rent from the council or a housing association and 16% from a private landlord. A renter here is slightly more likely to deal with a social landlord than a private one.
The 2021 Census, the source for every population figure on this page, puts the median age at 41. About 26% of residents are aged 25 to 44. Sidcup is mid-life, with the school run and the hospital appointment often sharing the same car.
Household income was modelled at about £74,700 a year in the financial year to March 2023, before tax, averaged across the area's neighbourhoods. That supports a mortgage on an ordinary house. Spread across a typical family, it doesn't make anyone rich.
About 19% of households are couples with children and 12% are lone parents. About 32% are one person living alone, and 17% of all households are a single pensioner on their own, a group already counted within that 32%. Almost as many households are a pensioner living alone as a couple with children. The post-war semis are housing both ends of the same family story.
About 32% of residents hold a degree-level qualification and about 18% have no formal qualifications. Full-time students are about 2%. Rose Bruford College and Bird College both train performers here, but the theatre crowd doesn't change the town's age much.
About 83% of residents describe their health as good or very good. Across the London Borough of Bexley, preventable deaths and smoking rates, at about 7% of adults, are both similar to England as a whole. Those are borough figures, set against the national benchmark, and they don't describe any one Sidcup street.
Sidcup's population is an ordinary mix, middle-aged and middle-income, with homeowners well ahead of renters. Some suburbs have one dominant type of resident. Sidcup has several, and most of them keep the hedge trimmed.