Graduate homeowners in early middle age, mostly raising families on good money. Nearly eight in ten households own their home. Six in ten adults have a degree. A third of households are couples with children. Prosperous Surrey, mid-school-run.
At the 2021 census, which is the source for every population figure here, Thames Ditton had 12,174 residents in 4,681 households. About 78% of households owned their home, 14% rented privately and 8% rented from a council or housing association. Renters are a minority with a small choice of homes, and the owners tend to stay put.
The median age is 43, and people aged 25 to 44 make up 23% of residents. That's a village whose residents are mostly past the flat-share years and well into the mortgage ones.
Household income is high. The Office for National Statistics modelled gross household income, before tax, at about £94,000 on average across the area in the financial year to March 2023. That's a healthy figure for a household, and in Thames Ditton it buys a modest share of a house.
The households themselves lean towards families. Couples with children make up 32% of households and lone parents 8%. People living alone account for 24%, and that includes the 13% of households that are a single pensioner on their own. On Sunday mornings the Old Cranleighan club in Weston Green has run mini rugby since 2011, and a third of the village's households are its natural customers.
The village is highly qualified. About 59% of residents aged 16 and over have a degree-level qualification, 8% have none and about 2% are full-time students. A place whose first written record is a charter from King Æthelred in 983 now has plenty of residents who could pronounce his name correctly.
The village has drawn entertainers for over a century. Either side of 1900, weekenders from London's world of popular entertainment came for the river and the boating, and the residents since include Billy Merson, Dick Emery, Trevor Bannister, Charlie Brooks and Ronan Keating, along with the cricketer Rory Burns and Sydney Camm, designer of the Hawker Hurricane. The type has evolved from music hall to television, and the commute to Waterloo has stayed broadly the same.
Thames Ditton's people are one of its real strengths: settled, well-educated households with money, families and a long habit of staying.