Upminster is mostly comfortably-off homeowners in middle age, along with a fair number of pensioners and families with school-age children. Nearly everyone owns. The typical resident is in their mid-forties. Household incomes are well into comfortable territory. Very few people rent.
About 85% of Upminster's households own their home, according to the 2021 census, which is the source for every population figure on this page. About 11% rent privately and about 4% rent from a council or housing association. That leaves a few streets of rented homes in a town of owners. Renting here is mostly a stop on the way to buying.
The typical resident is 46, and about 22% of residents are aged 25 to 44. Families arrive in their thirties with a pram and tend to stay until they have a bus pass.
The Office for National Statistics models typical household income across Upminster's neighbourhoods at about £80,000 a year before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. That's a figure from before the latest round of price rises, and it's an average across the area, so it covers working couples at the top of their earnings alongside pensioners living on what they earned decades ago. It's a comfortable income, and the size of the mortgages here takes a good part of it.
Of the 11,535 households counted, about 23% are couples with children and about 9% are lone parents. Upminster is family territory, though not as much as the semis and three-bedroom houses suggest.
About 23% of households are one person living alone, the same share as couples with children. Within that, about 15% of all households are a single pensioner. Many of those are probably people who raised children in these houses and stayed on after the children left. The four-bedroom semi with one occupant is a familiar sight in Upminster.
About 30% of residents hold a degree-level qualification, about 17% have no qualifications and about 1% are full-time students. Upminster has a broad mix of qualifications, closer to that of a commuter town than a university one.
About 85% of residents describe their health as good or very good. Across Havering as a whole, the rate of deaths from preventable causes is better than the England average, and smoking, at about 8% of adults, is similar to the national figure. Those borough figures cover Romford and Rainham as well as Upminster.
Upminster's residents are comfortably off. Most own their homes, are past the hardest years of the mortgage and are well enough to enjoy the garden.