Upper Norwood is home to a mix of graduates in their thirties, single people and families, living in the same streets and often in the same converted houses. About half own their homes. The rest are split almost evenly between private landlords and social housing. Most residents are of working age, and over half have a degree. Here the cyclist with a pannier full of laptop and the pensioner who has lived in a council block since it went up wait at the same bus stop.
Upper Norwood is home to about 32,800 people in about 14,500 households, according to the 2021 Census, which supplies every population figure on this page. About 49% of households own their home, about 27% rent privately and about 23% rent from the council or a housing association. With a split that even, there is no typical resident, and the turnover is about what you would expect from a district where a quarter of homes change tenant with each new lease.
The median resident is 38, and about 35% of people are aged between 25 and 44. These are mostly people well into their working lives, often with a mortgage and young children, and far fewer of them are at the start of their careers.
The Office for National Statistics models average household income here at about £73,000 a year before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. That is a household figure and often comes from two earners, and it is the amount before tax, National Insurance and the mortgage take their share.
Households vary a lot. About 34% are one person living alone, and about 8% are a single pensioner, who are part of that same one-person group. Couples with children make up about 17%, and lone parents about 15%. In households with children, two-parent and one-parent families are close to level, which a single average household figure would hide.
About 53% of residents hold a degree, about 12% have no formal qualifications and about 2% are full-time students. That is a well-qualified population that left student life behind some years ago, with a smaller group who never went through it. Very few students come up the hill.
About 86% of residents describe their health as good or very good. Across Croydon as a whole, the rate of deaths from preventable causes is similar to England's, and smoking, at about 13% of adults in the borough, is similar to the national rate too. These are borough-wide measures, so they describe Croydon in general and not this hill in particular.
Upper Norwood is a mixed district, neither especially well off nor especially struggling, where owners, renters, graduates and long-term council tenants share the same roads.