Working-age households, split evenly between owners and renters. Half own their home and half rent. The typical resident is in their late thirties. Lone-parent households outnumber couples with children. About one adult in three has a degree. The people here are in the middle of life, working, raising children and paying for it.
Across Thornton Heath's 18,783 households, about 50% own their home, about 31% rent from a private landlord and about 17% rent socially. That even split shows on the ground. On a typical road, some front doors have been repainted by an owner and others are waiting for a landlord to get round to it.
The median resident is 37, and about 29% of people are aged 25 to 44. That is the age band of first mortgages, second children and nursery fees, and in Thornton Heath it is the largest single group.
Modelled household income averaged about £66,700 before tax in the financial year to March 2023. That figure is a gross household total, usually from two earners, and it is now more than three years old. In practice it pays for a terrace here when two people are working.
The household mix comes from the 2021 census, which is also the source for every population figure on this page. About 27% of households are one person living alone, and about 8% are a pensioner on their own, a share already counted inside that 27%. Couples with dependent children make up about 17% and lone-parent households about 19%. Thornton Heath is a district of small households with plenty of children in them. Saturday mornings mean the park and the school run, not a lie-in.
About 36% of residents aged 16 and over hold a degree-level qualification, about 20% hold no qualifications at all, and about 3% are full-time students. The mix is wide. Graduates on the Victoria train live next door to people who left school and went straight into work. Students are few, so Thornton Heath is not the place for anyone hoping for student nightlife.
About 84% of residents described their own health as good or very good at the census. Across the London Borough of Croydon as a whole, the rate of deaths that could have been prevented is similar to the England average, and so is the share of adults who smoke, about 13%. Both are borough figures with England as the benchmark, and they say nothing about Thornton Heath's streets in particular. Around 366 people live in communal settings such as care homes, too few to change any of the shares above.
On the neighbourhood measures, Thornton Heath comes out below average. It is a stretched district, with half its households renting and many on modest budgets, though the people here are working-age and busy, and plenty of them are bringing up children.