Cheltenham's History, Population, Growth & Employment

Cheltenham's history, population, growth over time, employment rate and Census 2021 headline figures, sourced directly from the ONS's Nomis service.

• 121,452 people (2025)
• 79.3% employment rate, Apr 2025 to Mar 2026

About Cheltenham

Cheltenham is a spa town in Gloucestershire, in the South West of England, known for its Regency architecture, the Cheltenham Festival horse racing meeting, and its cluster of other festivals throughout the year. The town grew up around a mineral spring discovered in the early 18th century, and a royal visit from George III in 1788 helped turn it into a fashionable spa resort — the wide, tree-lined streets and grand terraces around the Promenade and Montpellier date from that Regency-era expansion, much of which is now protected as listed buildings.

More recently, the town was hit by the summer 2007 floods, when around 600 properties flooded and homes across the town were without mains water for more than a week after the Mythe Water Treatment Works flooded, and by the COVID-19 pandemic, whose first local case was recorded days before the 2020 Cheltenham Festival drew crowds from across the country.

Today Cheltenham’s economy leans heavily on technology and cyber security, education, and tourism around its festivals and racing. GCHQ, the government’s signals intelligence and cyber security agency, is based on the edge of town and has helped draw a wider cluster of tech and cyber firms to the area, alongside long-established independent schools including Cheltenham College and Cheltenham Ladies’ College.

This page pulls together the town’s key population and employment statistics, with separate pages for median earnings and the economy (jobs, businesses and claimants), sourced directly from the Office for National Statistics, and refreshed automatically as new figures are published. Our deprivation page maps how every neighbourhood ranks on the English Indices of Deprivation 2025, from income and employment to health, crime and housing. The latest children in low-income families statistics compare DWP estimates across all 20 wards. For the town’s headline figures on every topic in one place, see Cheltenham in Numbers.

Curious about a single neighbourhood? Our Cheltenham wards page maps all 20 electoral wards and compares them on crime, house prices and broadband, and each ward has its own profile with its deprivation ranking and the nearest GPs, dentists, schools, parks and other services.

Wondering who represents the town in Parliament? Our politics page shows Cheltenham’s current MP and the result of every general election since 2010, and the party history goes back to 1918.

Cheltenham Through the Years

Year	Event
1086	Domesday Book records Cheltenham as a small village
1226	Granted market town status by Henry III
1716	Mineral spring discovered — the start of Cheltenham as a spa town
1738–42	Henry Skillicorne develops the well and builds the first spa buildings
1788	King George III’s month-long royal visit cements Cheltenham’s fame as a spa resort
1818	First race meetings on Cleeve Hill — precursor to today’s racecourse
1830	Pittville Pump Room built
1841 / 1853	Cheltenham College and Cheltenham Ladies’ College founded
1893	Neptune’s Fountain was built
1898	Racing re-established at Prestbury Park, the modern racecourse site
1924	First Cheltenham Gold Cup run
1952	GCHQ relocates to Cheltenham
1969	Brian Jones, founding member of the Rolling Stones was buried at the crem
1974	Charlton Kings was merged into Cheltenham district
1991	Swindon Village, Up Hatherley, Leckhampton and Prestbury were added to the borough of Cheltenham from the borough of Tewkesbury
2004	GCHQ’s new Benhall ‘Doughnut’ building officially opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II
2007	Summer floods: around 600 properties flood in Cheltenham, and homes across the town lose mains water for more than a week when the Mythe Water Treatment Works floods
2011	Old GCHQ site in Oakley closed
2020	The Cheltenham Festival goes ahead in March, less than two weeks before the first national COVID-19 lockdown
2025	Population reaches 121,452

Population & Growth

Cheltenham's population has grown from 110,024 in 2001 to 121,452 in 2025 — an increase of 10.4% over 24 years, according to the ONS's official mid-year population estimates.

Employment

Labour market rates for Cheltenham residents aged 16-64, from the ONS Annual Population Survey, Apr 2025-Mar 2026:

• Economic activity rate: 82.5%
• Employment rate: 79.3%
• Unemployment rate: not published — suppressed by the ONS as statistically unreliable at this local scale

See the full year-by-year employment history since 2004, with a chart.

Census 2021

At the 2021 Census, Cheltenham had 118,836 usual residents — closely matching the same year's mid-year estimate above, as you'd expect from two independent counts of the same population.

Full data last refreshed 2 October 2026 at 05:44.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where Does This Data Come From?

• Population and employment figures come from Nomis, the Office for National Statistics' official service for labour market and census data. Population estimates and Census 2021 figures are both a count of usual residents; the small difference between them is expected, since they use slightly different methods and reference dates.

Why Isn't the Unemployment Rate Always Shown?

• Local unemployment rates are modelled from a survey sample, and for smaller areas like a single local authority, the ONS sometimes suppresses the figure as too statistically unreliable to publish. This is normal and not specific to Cheltenham.

How Often Is This Updated?

• Population estimates and employment rates are refreshed by the ONS periodically throughout the year; this page re-fetches the latest published figures from Nomis monthly.

About This Data

Data from Office for National Statistics via Nomis, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Last updated 2 October 2026, checked monthly.