Stratford is mostly young renters, and plenty of them are here for a few years before moving on. About seven in ten households rent. The typical resident is in their early thirties. Nearly half the adults have a degree. Owners are the exception, and the names on the doorbells change faster than the shop units.
All the population figures here come from the 2021 Census. Only about 26% of Stratford's households own their home. About 38% rent privately and 32% rent from a social landlord. In most buildings, if you own your flat, almost everyone else on the landing pays rent.
The median resident is 33, and about 43% of people are aged 25 to 44. Stratford is full of people between their first serious job and their first serious mortgage. Many of them are working out whether to stay.
Office for National Statistics modelling puts median household income in Stratford at about £61,450 a year before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. After tax, the same modelling puts it nearer £46,570. That money is often spread across a household of flatmates.
Single people living alone make up about 28% of households. About 6% are pensioners living alone, and they are counted within that 28%. Couples with children make up about 14% of households, and lone parents about the same at 14%. The rest are mostly couples without children and shared homes, which fits a place where the two-bedroom flat is the standard home.
About 46% of adults hold a degree, and about 17% have no formal qualifications at all. Stratford has graduates in the new blocks and long-standing residents who left school with nothing on paper, often living within a few streets of each other. Full-time students made up about 4% of residents in 2021, two years before University College London's East campus and the London College of Fashion opened on the Olympic park.
About 85% of residents described their health as good or very good in 2021, and that partly reflects how young they are. Across Newham, the rate of deaths from preventable causes is similar to England's, and so is smoking, at about 11% of adults. These are borough-wide figures compared with England, and they don't describe any one street in Stratford.
Stratford is young and well qualified, but few households own and many move on, so it is harder to settle into than its degree count suggests. People mostly rent here for a few years on the way to somewhere else.