South Kensington is mostly well-educated renters in their thirties, a lot of them living alone. More than half rent privately. Two in three adults have a degree. Nearly half of homes hold a single person. Families with children are a minority.
About 39% of households own their home and about 54% rent privately, with about 6% in social housing. That puts private landlords ahead of owner-occupiers in a district of million-pound flats. Many residents here are paying a large monthly bill for a place somebody else owns, and doing it with every appearance of contentment.
The typical resident is 36, and about 31% of people are aged 25 to 44. This is a district of established careers more than first jobs, at the stage where a promotion arrives before the children do.
Households here had a modelled gross income of about £94,039 a year, before tax, in the financial year to March 2023, averaged across the area by the Office for National Statistics. It is a comfortable figure that doesn't come close to buying anything here, which helps explain why so many residents rent.
Every population figure on this page comes from the 2021 Census. About 44% of households are a single person living alone, and that includes the roughly 10% of households who are a pensioner on their own. Couples with children make up about 13% of households and lone parents about 6%. Nearly half the front doors here have one name on the post. The school run is a minority activity.
About 66% of adults hold a degree, about 6% have no qualifications and about 3% are full-time students. For a district built around Imperial College, the Royal College of Music and the Royal College of Art, the student share is small. The students study here and mostly live elsewhere. Charles Booth, the pioneer of social research, lived at 6 Grenville Place, and a survey of today's residents wouldn't have taken him long.
About 93% of residents describe their health as good or very good. Across Kensington and Chelsea, preventable deaths come in better than the England rate and smoking is similar to the England figure, at about 8% of adults. Those are borough-wide comparisons, so they can't be read as a verdict on any one street.
About 1,440 people live in communal establishments such as halls, hostels and a care home, with about 16,255 in private households. Everything above about tenure, households and living alone describes the private households only. The communal residents sit outside those shares, and they make the district a little busier and more transient than the household figures alone suggest.
The people of South Kensington are one of its real strengths, being healthy, highly educated and well paid. Most of them rent and many live alone, so the place belongs to grown-ups with careers far more than to young families.