Thame is mostly home-owning households in early middle age, with a good share of graduates and hardly any students. Owners outnumber renters by a wide margin. The typical resident is in their mid-forties. Four in ten adults have a degree. It's a town that finished university some time ago and spent the years since paying off a semi.
The 2021 census, which is the source for every population figure on this page, found that about 71% of Thame households own their home. Around 15% rent privately and 12% rent social housing, so the renting minority is split almost evenly between private landlords and social housing.
The typical resident is 44, and people aged 25 to 44 make up about 24% of the population. Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees chose Thame to settle in from 1984, and the age profile fits a town where the touring days are mostly over.
The Office for National Statistics models median household income across Thame's neighbourhoods at about £72,000 before tax for the financial year to March 2023. That figure is for whole households, so two earners count together. Travelodge and CPM Group both run their head offices from the edge of town, so some of that pay is earned without a commute.
About 22% of households are couples with children, and around 10% are lone parents. Another 28% are one person living alone, and that group includes the 14% of households who are a single pensioner. It's a town of families and people who have reached the stage after the family, with not much in between.
About 41% of residents hold a degree-level qualification, while 13% have no qualifications at all. Full-time students make up about 1%. The old workhouse on Oxford Road later became Rycotewood College, a further education college, which is a fair picture in one building of how the town has got on since the nineteenth century.
Thame's residents are one of its real strengths. They own their homes, have reasonable incomes and qualifications, and are at an age where they plan to stay.