Owners, mostly, and mostly the far side of forty. Seven in ten households own their home. People in their late twenties and thirties are thin on the ground. One household in five is a pensioner living alone. Ticehurst isn't where people start out; it's where they stay put.
Home ownership sets the tone. At the 2021 Census, which is the source for every population figure here, about 70% of Ticehurst's 896 households owned their home. Private renters were about 9% and social renters about 18%, so the rented sector is mainly council or housing-association homes rather than the buy-to-let flats that fill market towns. The estate agent's "ideal first home" usually has an owner who has lived in it for twenty years and no plans to move.
The median age is 49. Only about 18% of residents are aged 25 to 44, the years when people usually start families, change jobs and move house. That missing middle explains a lot: fewer young families in the pushchair queue, fewer people chasing a commute, and a village where the parish noticeboard reaches more readers than the nursery waiting list.
Household income was about £62,000 before tax in the financial year to March 2023, on the Office for National Statistics' modelled estimate for the wider area. That is a gross figure for the household, not a salary, and it describes the year to March 2023 rather than today. It is a comfortable figure that sits alongside a housing stock priced for people who arrived with equity rather than earnings.
Household make-up leans towards smaller and older homes. About 32% of households are one person living alone, and within that group about 21% of all households are pensioners on their own, so the two figures describe overlapping people rather than two separate groups. Couples with dependent children make up about 18% of households and lone parents about 11%. Walk past a four-bedroom house here and there is a fair chance the bedrooms are for grandchildren who visit at Christmas.
The mix of qualifications is broad. About 33% of residents hold a degree-level qualification, about 17% have no formal qualifications, and full-time students are about 1%. The last figure is the honest one: anyone who goes away to study tends not to come back until they can afford the house, which is often a long time.
A small number of people, 19, live in communal settings rather than private households, too few to change how any of these shares read.
The weak spot in Ticehurst's community picture is its shape rather than its people: an ageing, owner-occupied village with a thin working-age middle and a large share living alone. Buyers looking for a lively young neighbourhood will find a settled one instead, and should decide whether that suits them before the survey rather than after.