Medway is in the top 40% most densely populated local authority areas.
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Medway is home to 9.3 people per football pitch sized piece of land compared with 8.8 people in 2011.
The proportion of the Medway population aged 65 or over is expected to continue increasing up to 2040.
Languages
The most common language of residents whose main language is not English is Romanian followed by Polish and Punjabi.
Medway is becoming more diverse, 25.7% of residents identified as being from ethnic minority backgrounds.
This is lower than England and Wales where 18.3% of residents identified as being from ethnic minority backgrounds backgrounds.
5.6% of residents identified as being Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean or African, the largest increase of any ethnic group.
Children and young people
Medway has:
- 107 schools
- 3 universities
- 1 further education college
- 1 university technical college
- the oldest choir school in the world.
More than 90% of Medway's schools are rated good or better by Ofsted.
77 children in care per 10,000 children in Medway.
Employment and businesses
Medway's economy is worth £6.3 billion. There are 14,000 businesses of which 91% have 10 employees or less. Unemployment fell from 9.6% in 2013 to 4% in 2023.
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16.8% residents are economically inactive.
Medway is well connected, it's only 34 minutes to London by high speed train.
Zero carbon
Medway has committed to being net zero by 2050.
Housing
In 2021, 13.6% of households were rented in the social sector.
Private renting increased from 17.1% to 20.2%.
Home ownership decreased from 67.7% to 64.7%.
Medway is an attractive tourist destination
Tourism in Medway:
- brings in 5 million visitors each year
- offers 7,000 jobs
- brings £360 million to the local economy
- has historic heritage attractions
- has a free festival and events programme
- has 8 green flag parks.
Health in Medway
- 45.2% described their health as very good, this is up from 42.1% in 2011
- 5.6% report their health as bad or very bad
- 17.4% of residents have a disability or long term illnesses, this is up from 16.4% in 2011.
Life expectancy
In 2022, life expectancy at birth for males (78.7 years) and females (82.5 years) in Medway was lower than the national average which is 79.3 for males and 83.2 for females.
Life satisfaction
In 2022 to 2023, 75% of people reported high or very high levels of life satisfaction which is similar compared to the England average (78%).
Smoking rates
Smoking rates have significantly decreased in 2022, 8.9% of adults were smokers, this is down from 24.2% in 2011. The national average is 12.7%.
Breastfeeding
In 2022 to 2023, 41.9% of infants were totally or partially breastfed at age 6 to 8 weeks, which is lower compared to the England average of 49.2%.
Healthy weight
In 2022 to 2023, 60.8% of children in year 6 maintained a healthy weight. The national average is 61.9%.
In 2021 to 2022, 67.2% of adults were classified as overweight or obese. The England average is 63.8%.