Ilford population

168,168people · latest estimate

Photo: Sunil060902, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By James Burfield, SEO consultant, Bath · Page updated 25 September 2026 · GeoNames

Ilford has a population of 168,168, making it the 10th largest place in Greater London.

#10

of 255 in Greater London

Year-by-year official estimates for the wider area: Redbridge population trends, 2001–2025.

Ilford in context

3 km

south to Barking, the nearest larger town

1,545,051

people live within 10 km

#52

largest of 6,358 UK places

799

food businesses in Redbridge

Distances are straight-line from the settlement's recorded coordinates. The 10 km figure sums the recorded places within that radius, so it describes how built-up the surroundings are rather than people per square kilometre.

The centre of Ilford sits in postcode district IG1.

Council tax

The area Band D council tax for Redbridge, the billing authority covering Ilford, is £2,295 for 2026–27.

From MHCLG's council tax statistics (Table 9): the area average including police, fire and parish precepts, so it is the council's figure rather than the town's, and your own band depends on your property's 1991 valuation.

Common questions

What is the population of Ilford?

The populated place itself holds 168,168 residents. The wider Redbridge council area recorded 321,829 in 2025. Each figure describes a different boundary and all are correct; the meanings table on this page says which is which, because a population without its boundary is not an answer.

Go deeper

Population since 2001

Redbridge, year by year from ONS estimates

Postcode district IG1

Wards, constituencies and the deprivation profile

Nearby in Greater London

#	Place	Population
1	Archway	215,667
2	Sutton	187,600
3	Croydon	173,314
4	Enfield Town	156,858
5	Harrow	149,246
6	Tottenham	130,000

All 255 places in Greater London →