Thousand Oaks, California

Area Profile

125,205 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for Thousand Oaks, in Ventura County.

57out of 100
Area Score
Bottom 37% of 2,944 profiles measured

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
OpportunityTop 47% of 3,904 cities measured58
GrowthTop 32% of 2,973 cities measured60
Housing affordability3735th of 4,223 cities measured52
ClimateTop 4% of 4,223 cities measured100
Physical resilience3819th of 4,182 cities measured13
AccessTop 50% of 4,226 cities measured92
Economic stabilityTop 44% of 4,226 cities measured63
The quick read

Unemployment is 4.2% and median household income $135,603, putting employment conditions in the middle range of published city profiles.

Buying strains local incomes far more than renting does — the median home is 7.3 times median household income, against a historic benchmark near three — while rent takes 24% of it.

Physical-risk exposure is above the national median, driven mainly by earthquake, inland flooding and wildfire.

At a glance

Population
125,205
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$135,603
Top 7% nationally
Density
2,266/sq mi
55.3 sq mi of land
Median age
44.9
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Ventura County
California
Metro area
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA
Nearest major airport
VNY
22 mi · Van Nuys
Median home value
$991,600
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

Unemployment of 4.2% is lower than 55% of the 3,904 measured US cities.

Employment fell 2.1% over the past year, to 59,847 employed residents.

51% of adults hold a four-year degree, higher than 89% of measured US cities.

Household income is higher than at least 93% of measured US cities.

MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Median household income ±$4,488$135,603Top 7%of 29,5732024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$2,141$66,591Top 7%of 31,4202024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate8.9%Bottom 42%of 31,9002024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute26.5 minBottom 49%of 31,5432024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher51.4%Top 11%of 31,9192024 ACS 5-Year
Employment59,847Top 46%of 3,904June 2026
Employment change (3 years)-0.6%Bottom 41%of 3,903June 2026
Employment change (year over year)-2.1%Bottom 16%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force62,447Top 46%of 3,904June 2026
Labor force participation62.5%Top 43%of 31,9332024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$71,810Top 39%of 3,6582025 OEWS
Median annual wage$52,510Top 42%of 3,6582025 OEWS
Unemployment change (year over year)-0.4%Bottom 26%of 3,904June 2026
Unemployment rate4.2%Bottom 45%of 3,904June 2026
Unemployment rate
2021/062022/032022/122023/092024/062025/032025/102026/066.22.8
Monthly unemployment rate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most recent value 4.2% in June 2026. A break in the line is a month the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not publish for this area — it is left empty rather than estimated.
Median household income, successive ACS releases
2021202220232024136k114k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $135,603 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.
Largest occupations — Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides15,250$34,320
Fast Food and Counter Workers9,520$42,370
Retail Salespersons8,270$36,880
Cashiers7,620$36,150
General and Operations Managers5,770$103,870
Office Clerks, General5,750$48,370

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There are 21.2 students for every full-time teacher, more than in most measured places.

Public schools
30
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
21.2
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
Newbury Park HighConejo Valley Unified2,04722.0
Westlake HighConejo Valley Unified1,90024.1
Thousand Oaks HighConejo Valley Unified1,70321.3
Sycamore CanyonConejo Valley Unified93722.9
Colina MiddleConejo Valley Unified83221.9
Sequoia MiddleConejo Valley Unified79819.9
Los Cerritos MiddleConejo Valley Unified72522.0
Lang RanchConejo Valley Unified72322.6
Redwood MiddleConejo Valley Unified58922.7
Env Acad of Research Tech and Earth ScisConejo Valley Unified53924.5
Westlake ElementaryConejo Valley Unified51222.3
Weathersfield ElementaryConejo Valley Unified43322.8

23.2% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against California’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Prices for everything a household buys run about 14% above the national average, on the Bureau of Economic Analysis index. Housing drives most of that difference.

Median rent of $2,664 takes 24% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 7.3 times median household income here, well above the historic benchmark, at a level conventionally described as seriously unaffordable.

Cost of living
113.7

Prices here run about 14% above the national average. The spread between places is driven mostly by housing — goods vary far less — and this excludes taxes.

Rent as a share of income
23.6%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
7.3×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$2,664
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$991,600
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared nationallySource period
Cost of living index113.7Top 6%of 3,6582023
Home price to income7.31Top 5%of 28,4732024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate70.8%Bottom 39%of 31,8432024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±86648,084Top 1%of 32,3302024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$100$2,664Top 3%of 23,4322024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$16,885$991,600Top 3%of 29,3422024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income23.6%Top 22%of 23,2012024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate3.2%Bottom 20%of 32,0012024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →
Development Momentum
60/ 100
Top 32% of 2,973 published city profiles
Permitting is decreasing, measured from 2022 to 2025.

An AreaProfile calculation combining permit volume per resident, its direction over one and three years, population change and employment growth. Permit volume alone is not the measure.

Population has fallen 2% since 2020, reaching 124,229 in 2024.

Permitting has turned downward after moving the other way the year before.

89% of recently permitted units are in buildings of five or more homes, so new supply is concentrated in apartments and condominiums rather than detached houses.

At 2.7 permitted units per 1,000 residents, building activity is above the median for measured US cities.

Units permitted
344
12 months ending July 2026
Per 1,000 residents
2.7
Top 45% nationally
Year over year
+525%
vs the prior twelve months
Multifamily share
88.7%
units in 5+ unit buildings
Population, annual estimates
20202021202220232024127k124k
Census Population Estimates Program, July 1 of each year. These annual estimates are designed for year-over-year comparison, unlike the ACS five-year figure shown as this profile's population.
Housing units permitted per year
2022202320242025557.0
Annual totals from the Census Building Permits Survey. Permitting in 2025 was higher than 2022 (+657%).

Weather & climate

12 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 78°F and January a low of 45°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 12.0 inches.

Air quality measures a median index of 50, in the Good band, and about 15 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

30°50°70°90°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station CAMARILLO AP, 12.1 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND2.9"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index84.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation12.0"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low45°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high78°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months121991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 100152024 calendar year
Median air quality index50.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing14°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
50
Good on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
84
90th percentile index
Days above 100
15
unhealthy for sensitive groups

A comfortable median and a bad tail are different problems. Wildfire smoke and summer ozone show up in the worst tenth of days, not in the middle of the year.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

Physical risk

13 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake, inland flooding and wildfire.

WildfireHigh
EarthquakeHigh
Inland floodingHigh
Heat waveModerate
AvalancheModerate

Low or minimal exposure: landslide, drought, lightning, coastal flooding, hail, tsunami, strong wind, tornado, cold wave, winter weather.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

Violent crime
126
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year
Property crime
988
per 100,000 residents · 2025 calendar year

Below these are deaths rather than offences, published for the county. The two measure different things and are not comparable with each other.

Thousand Oaks's police department reported 126 violent offences per 100,000 residents, near the middle of places with a department reporting. Property crime runs at 988.

Ventura County records 2.0 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, lower than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 6.4 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 21.0 per 100,000 residents in Ventura County.

Homicide
2.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
6.4
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
21.0
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
12.7
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Offences are reported to the FBI by Thousand Oaks’s own police department, for the population it serves, and are shown only where it reported every month of the year — a partial year is withheld rather than scaled up. Reported crime counts what was reported to and recorded by police, which is not the same as what happened, and a place that draws a large daytime workforce carries incidents its residents did not generate. Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Ventura County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around Thousand Oaks rather than Thousand Oaks itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Taxes
Taxes are not published: no source covers them nationally with a method open enough to check. Cost of living now is — the index above is the Bureau of Economic Analysis price parity for this area — but it is a price level for all consumption rather than a budget for a household, its spread is driven mostly by housing, and it excludes taxes. Housing affordability is computed separately from rent, price and income, because that answers a narrower and more actionable question. Nothing here is individualised tax advice.
Anything about a specific address
Every figure describes an area, not a street or a house. School attendance zones, insurance pricing and the character of a neighbourhood all vary within the places measured here.

Access

7 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 22 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Van NuysVNY22 mi8,001 ft
Los Angeles IntlLAX32 mi12,923 ft
Long Beach (Daugherty Fld)LGB49 mi10,000 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

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Area Score
57
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Other cities in Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
OxnardVentura County200,92846vs Thousand Oaks
Simi ValleyVentura County125,63451vs Thousand Oaks
San Buenaventura (Ventura)Ventura County109,85749vs Thousand Oaks
CamarilloVentura County70,18653vs Thousand Oaks
MoorparkVentura County35,85459vs Thousand Oaks
Santa PaulaVentura County31,37651vs Thousand Oaks
Port HuenemeVentura County21,58249vs Thousand Oaks
FillmoreVentura County16,81654vs Thousand Oaks
Oak ParkVentura County13,757vs Thousand Oaks

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
safetyFederal Bureau of Investigation, Crime Data Explorer
Summarized offense counts by law enforcement agency
2025 calendar yearAnnually, with monthly revisions
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
HousingU.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Regional price parities and county personal income
2023Annually, each December
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
June 2026Monthly
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
DevelopmentU.S. Census Bureau
Building Permits Survey
12 months ending July 2026Monthly, roughly three weeks after the reference month
DemographicsU.S. Census Bureau
Population Estimates Program
July 1, 2024 estimateAnnual (vintage released each spring)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them
ClimateU.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System
Daily Air Quality Index by county
2024 calendar yearAnnually, once a calendar year is complete

Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.

ZIP codes in Thousand Oaks

4 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
9132043,472$148,99159
9136042,236$119,29656
9136235,996$139,80056
9136118,802$144,90056