Whetstone is home to well-off, well-educated owner-occupiers in early middle age. Seven in ten households own their home. The typical resident is in their early forties. Half the adults have a degree. This is a suburb where the residents' association meetings start on time.
At the 2021 census, which is the source of every population figure on this page, about 69% of Whetstone households owned their home outright or with a mortgage. About 23% rented privately and about 7% rented from the council or a housing association. Owning is the default, and renting is what people do on their way to it.
The median age is 42, and about 27% of residents are aged 25 to 44. That makes Whetstone a place in the middle of life: past the flat-share years, into the school-run years, and some way off retirement for most.
The Office for National Statistics models typical gross household income here at about £82,000 a year before tax, for the financial year to March 2023. That figure is a modelled average across the area, and it describes a household three years ago. It is also the number before tax and a north London mortgage have had their turn, and in Whetstone both of them are hungry.
The households split several ways. About 23% are couples with dependent children and about 10% are lone parents. About 25% are one person living alone, and within that group about 11% of all households are a single pensioner on their own. The family with two scooters in the hall is about as common on a Whetstone close as the house next door with one person in it.
About 52% of adults hold a degree-level qualification, about 13% hold no qualifications and about 2% are full-time students. There is no university here and no student quarter, so the September rush in Whetstone is new school shoes.
About 86% of residents describe their health as good or very good. Across Barnet as a whole, the borough's rate of preventable deaths is better than the England average, and smoking is at a similar level to England's at about 9%. Those are borough figures, so they describe Barnet's population at large and give a sense of the backdrop to Whetstone's own healthy self-reported picture.
The people are one of Whetstone's real strengths: settled owners, comfortable incomes, plenty of qualifications and good health. Anyone joining them will find the neighbours have already done the reading.