Aldermaston - Demography

Demography

The 1831 census showed that 68% of the employed population of Aldermaston were working class or "labourers and servants". 20% were middle class ("middling sorts"), 10% were upper class ("employers and professionals") and 2% were unclassified.

In 1887 the population of the parish was 528. By 1896, the population had grown to 585. The population fluctuated steadily around 550 until the 1950s and 1960s, when a population explosion resulted in the 1961 UK census reporting 2,186 residents in the parish. This coincides with the opening of the Atomic Weapons Establishment in the early 1950s, and the majority of this figure counts residents in the parts of Tadley within the parish of Aldermaston—between 1901 and 1961, 368 houses were built in the parish.

A number of parish border changes occurred in the first half of the 20th century, including the net loss of 307 acres (124 ha) to Beenham and Woolhampton on 1 April 1934 alone. By 2001, the parish population had reduced to 927.

The 2001 United Kingdom Census identified that 99.3% of householders in the parish as white. In 2005 30% of parish residents lived in the village. Of the 70% outside the village, 30% lived at Aldermaston Wharf, 20% in the local mobile home parks, 10% in the Falcon Fields development and 10% in "other outlying areas". Falcon Fields is a housing development on the southern border of the parish, completed in the early 2000s. Ravenswing and Pinelands are mobile home parks near the Hampshire border. Raghill is an industrial area to the east of the parish, which has some light residential developments.

The average age of residents in the parish is approximately 50 with 31.5% of residents in the 45–64 age group. The average age of residents of Aldermaston Wharf is 30.7, and in the mobile home parks the average age is 53.9. Of these, 53.3% were female. This is in contrast with the 2001 census data, which showed that 49.8% were female.

In 2005, 3% of the parish population were unemployed and 25% were retired. The retirement figure increased in the Pinelands and Ravenswing areas, with a statistic of 42%. Most residents' places of work are in surrounding towns, with their location in the parish largely dictating where to look for work. The 2005 survey identified that residents in the south of the parish (Falcon Fields and Ravenswing/Pinelands) travel towards Tadley and Basingstoke whereas those further north in the parish tend to find work in Reading, Newbury and London.