Wapping is home to young, well-qualified professionals, most of whom rent. The typical resident is in their early thirties. Most hold a degree. Only about three in ten households own their home. It is a high-earning place where few people stay long.
The 2021 Census, the source for every population figure here, counted 19,016 residents. Only about 30% of households own their home, while about 43% rent privately and about 24% rent from a social landlord. Private tenants outnumber owners on most streets, and many landlords live somewhere else.
The median age is 33, and about 47% of residents are between 25 and 44. That is a population in its prime working years, and plenty of its children are not yet born.
The Office for National Statistics models median household income across Wapping at about £76,000 before tax in the financial year to March 2023. That is a strong figure for an area where most households rent and so much of the money goes on the rent each month.
About 36% of households are one person living alone, and about 6% are a single pensioner, which is part of that 36%. Couples with children make up about 14% of households and lone parents about 7%. A lot of the front doors in Wapping open onto one person and a takeaway menu.
About 59% of residents have a degree, about 13% have no qualifications and about 3% are full-time students. The graduate share is high, the student share is small, and the people with degrees here have long since left their student days behind.
Most residents describe their own health well, with about 87% calling it good or very good. On the borough figures, Tower Hamlets is similar to England on preventable deaths, and its smoking rate of about 14% is also rated similar to England's. Those borough figures cover far more than this riverside strip, and they match a population this young.
The census also counted 670 people living in communal establishments, such as halls, care homes and hostels, outside ordinary households. That number is small next to the private households, so it changes the household shares above very little. Wapping is overwhelmingly a place of private flats with their own front doors.
Wapping's population is middling overall: young, educated and comfortably paid, but mostly renting and mostly living alone or as couples. A buyer here owns in a neighbourhood made up mainly of tenants.