Woolwich is a young, renting town where owning your home is the minority position. Only about a third of households own. Roughly another third rent from a council or housing association. The typical resident is in their mid-thirties. Graduates and people with no qualifications live in the same streets in large numbers.
The 2021 Census counted about 87,900 people in 34,251 households across Woolwich and Plumstead, and every population figure here comes from that census. About 33% of households own their home, 30% rent privately and 35% rent from a council or housing association. Social renting is the most common tenure in Woolwich, ahead of owning. Most of the riverside flats were sold to buyers, while the estates up the hill were built to be rented out.
The median age is 35, and about 36% of residents are aged 25 to 44. That is the age group that cares most about a direct line to Canary Wharf, and it is the largest one here.
The Office for National Statistics models median household income at about £66,000 before tax for the financial year to March 2023, averaged across the area. That figure is before tax and before rent or a mortgage, and in a borough with London housing costs, that difference matters.
The households are a mixed picture. About 31% are one person living alone, and about 7% are a pensioner on their own, a group counted within the single-person share. Couples with children make up about 17% of households, and lone parents another 17%. Families with one parent are as common here as families with two. Those are lives arranged around school runs and childcare more than around nights out.
Qualifications run at both ends. About 42% of residents aged 16 and over hold a degree, and about 19% have no formal qualifications. Only about 3% are full-time students, so the graduates here are working people, not undergraduates. The degree holders and those without qualifications often share a postcode, sometimes the same block.
On health, about 84% of residents describe their health as good or very good. For the Royal Borough of Greenwich as a whole, preventable deaths run at a rate similar to England's, and about 9% of adults smoke, also similar to the national figure. The borough-level public health record is broadly average for the country.
The community profile is the weaker part of Woolwich. It is young and mostly renting, more people rent from a council or housing association than own, and the transport has done more for the place than the household figures have caught up with. If you are buying a flat and want neighbours who also own, ask how many flats in the block are owner-occupied and how many are let.