Stratton St Margaret is lived in by people who bought a house, paid most of it off and saw no reason to leave. Three in four own their home. The typical resident is in their mid-forties. Students are almost absent. It is the suburb people settle into after the flat-sharing years, and then stop discussing moving.
Ownership is the defining fact. About 74% of households own their home, while about 13% rent privately and a similar share rent from a council or housing association. That leaves the private rental market thin, and it means most neighbours have a financial stake in the street staying exactly as it is. Planning notices get read closely here.
The typical resident is 45, and people aged 25 to 44 make up about 24% of the population. That is a suburb of established households rather than first jobs, and the school-run generation shares the pavement with the one that has already finished.
The average household income was about £51,000 before tax in the financial year to March 2023, a modelled figure for that year rather than today's pay packets. It describes a place where incomes cover a mortgage and a second car without much drama, which is the local definition of comfortable.
Around 23,500 people live in the area, in just over 10,100 households, and all the population figures on this page come from the 2021 Census.
The household mix is more varied than the family-suburb label suggests. About 29% of households are one person living alone, and within that about 15% of all households are a single pensioner. Couples with children make up about 19% of households and lone parents about 8%. The semi with two kids and a trampoline is the image, but a single person with a lawn to mow is almost as common. The estate agent's "ideal family home" is, a good share of the time, somebody's quiet retirement.
Qualifications are mixed rather than skewed. About 23% of residents hold a degree-level qualification, about 19% have no formal qualifications, and about 2% are full-time students. It is a place built on work that paid a mortgage whether or not it involved a graduation gown, which fits a parish whose neighbours have made aircraft, cars and car parts.
Health is steady. About 81% of residents describe their health as good or very good in the census. At council level, Swindon's rate of deaths from preventable causes is similar to the England average, as is its smoking rate of about 9% of adults. Those are borough-wide figures with an England benchmark, not a verdict on Stratton's own streets.
Stratton St Margaret is middle-of-the-road in the most literal sense: settled owners, middling incomes and middling qualifications, with nobody far out at either edge. It is an ordinary suburb that has been left alone long enough to become comfortable.