An older village that rents far more than its appearance suggests. Two in five households rent, and a good share of that is social housing rather than the private market. A third of households are one person living alone. The middle of the age range sits comfortably past fifty. This is not a retirement village and not a commuter dormitory: it is a working village whose working-age population thinned out and never fully came back.
On tenure, around 58% of households own their home, around 20% rent privately and around 22% rent from a social landlord. That social rented share is the number that separates Williton from the picture people carry of a Somerset village. It is a legacy of the village's role as the administrative and service centre for the district rather than as a scenic satellite, and it means the housing here was built for people who worked locally, not for people who retired here with a view in mind.
The 2021 census puts the median age at around 55, with only around 18% of residents aged between 25 and 44. That is a thin band in the years when people are typically forming households and having children, and it shapes everything from the school roll to what time the village goes quiet.
Income sits at around £43,800 for the typical household before tax, on modelled figures for the financial year to March 2023. After tax that comes down to around £34,400. Both numbers describe 2022 and 2023 rather than today, so they age faster than most of the data on this page, and they should be read as the shape of local earnings rather than as anybody's current payslip.
Household make-up follows from the age profile. Around 33% of households are a single person, and around 21% of all households are a pensioner living alone, which is a subset of that single-person group rather than an addition to it. Around 12% are couples with dependent children, and around 10% are lone parents. Put plainly, a household with children in it is the minority arrangement here by a wide margin, and a house with one person in it is close to the modal one. All of these come from the 2021 census, as does every population figure on this page.
Qualifications split almost evenly at both ends. Around 24% of residents hold a degree-level qualification and around 24% hold none at all, with full-time students under 1%. Two populations of roughly equal size occupying the same village and, in all probability, the same pubs.
On health, around 73% of residents report good or very good health and around 9% report bad or very bad health. For wider context, the Somerset local authority area records a preventable mortality rate of around 133 per 100,000, which is rated better than the England average, and adult smoking at around 11%, rated similar to England. Those two are county-level measures with an England benchmark attached, not the village's own numbers, and they say something about Somerset rather than about the people on any particular street here.
One structural note worth carrying into the other figures: around 78 residents live in communal establishments rather than private households, and there are 2 care homes in the area, both rated good or better by the Care Quality Commission. It is a small share of a small population, but it nudges the age profile upwards and is worth knowing before reading too much into the median.
The population profile is the softest part of Williton's case. Older, thinner in the household-forming years, split hard on qualifications and carrying a social housing share most villages this size do not, which is neither a scandal nor a selling point, just the honest shape of who is actually here.