The census revealed Sydney has a new biggest employer. The healthcare and social assistance sector - which includes doctors, nurses, dentists, childcare workers and aged care workers - has taken over from retail as the largest source of jobs. One in every nine Sydney workers now makes a living by providing healthcare and social services and the ratio is even higher nationally. Professional, scientific and technical services along with education and training also grew in importance. However, the significance of manufacturing as an employer continued its decline. It accounted for 8.5 per cent of the city's workers, down from 9.7 per cent in 2006. Manufacturing - a major employer in western Sydney - shed nearly 10,000 jobs between 2006 and 2011. Sydney's workforce is increasingly white collar. Professionals' share of total employment grew more than any other occupational category and the proportion of managers also edged higher. Those two occupations now account for nearly 4 in 10 of the city's workers. In contrast, the share of technicians and tradesmen shrank a little. The proportion of workers putting in more than 40 hours a week fell a little compared with 2006 (from 49.1 per cent to 47.4 per cent) but was still above the national average. Two-thirds of those doing more than 40 hours a week were men. The share of female full-time workers rose marginally and was higher than the national average.

Income A city-wide wealth surge has been tempered by mortgage and rental stress. Sydney's median family income reached $87,516 a year in 2011, up $17,000 compared with the previous census. The prosperity on the north shore stood out: seven of the 10 highest income council areas were north of the harbour. Mosman council topped the list with a median family income of about $148,000 a year. Landlords on the north side also charged the city's steepest rents, led by St Ives with a median rent of $665 a week. The home borrowers of Seaforth are paying dearly for their harbour views - that suburb had Sydney's highest median mortgage repayment of $3500 a month. The census also revealed strikingly high incomes on the city's outskirts. In the Sutherland shire the median family income was almost $105,000 a year, while in the Hills shire and Hornsby the figure was above $110,000. In Camden council, on the city's far south-west, median family income rose nearly $21,000 in five years to $96,980 a year. Camden local government area now has a higher median family income than Ryde, Strathfield, Ashfield and Kogarah. Despite the strong income growth, high housing costs are taking a toll. The share of outright home ownership has fallen sharply over the past decade and is below the national average. Households in Sydney (and Canberra) shoulder Australia's biggest mortgages, with median monthly home loan repayments of $2167, compared with the national average of $1800.

The census revealed an outer suburban belt of mortgage stress and "middle ring" of suburbs with high rates of rental stress. Campbelltown, Liverpool, Penrith and Blacktown council areas all had a much higher than average ratio of households paying more than 30 per cent of their income in home loan repayments, a widely accepted threshold of ''mortgage stress''. An arc of neighbourhoods closer to the central business district had a significant proportion renters under financial pressure. This reflected a dramatic rise in city rents - the median weekly jumped more than 40 per cent in five years to $351, way above the national average of $285. Worst hit by high housing costs are the Auburn, Bankstown and Fairfield council areas. Women Women have always been important consumers but the census underscored their importance as earners, especially in Sydney. One in four workers earning more than $100,000 a year are now women, many young and well educated. Eight of 10 Australian suburbs with the biggest proportion of women workers on six-figure salaries are in Sydney. A growing majority of professionals are women - the proportion increased from 50.8 per cent in 2006 to 51.3 per cent last year. Women also make up a growing share of managers - up 1.2 percentage points to 36.1 per cent.

The city's commercial strengths - including banking and finance, marketing, advertising, media, business services, telecommunications, education, fashion and entertainment - have helped attract young, well-qualified female workers. The inner west has become a hub for this unique cohort. Housing High housing costs and changing preferences are reshaping how the city lives. Just 19 per cent of new households formed between 2006 and 2011 opted for the traditional detached home, once the Australian dream. That's down from nearly 70 per cent between 1986 and 1991. The rest live in units and townhouses. Sydney's shift to high-density living increasingly sets it apart. Just 58.9 per cent of its dwellings are detached houses compared with a national average of almost 74 per cent. In Perth and Brisbane more than 76 per cent of houses are detached, and in Melbourne it's 71 per cent. There's also been a considerable rise in the number of Sydney homes sheltering more than one family. In 1991 the city had just 12,500 multi-family households but that figure ballooned to 40,000 in 2011.

The high-density trend has accompanied an historic demographic reversal. For a century the average number of people per household was in decline in Sydney, but that trend seems to be no more. Analysis by research firm Macromonitor shows the ratio of people to occupied dwelling in Sydney rose from 2.81 to 2.88 between 2006 and 2011. That ratio is likely to keep rising over the next decade. Economists say the high cost of housing in Sydney has underpinned these trends. A growing preference to live near the CBD, and greater acceptance of high-density living, have also played a part. Knowledge There was a sharp rise in higher education between 2006 and 2011, reflecting the growing importance of information-based industries. More than 600,000 people in Sydney hold a bachelors degree, up 24 per cent in five years. The rate of growth for post-graduate degrees was even faster. In the best educated areas, mostly on the north shore and inner west, the ratio of people with a postgraduate degree is one in six. But there are suburbs in low income neighbourhoods in south-western Sydney with no postgraduates at all.

Phillip O'Neill, a professor from the University of Western Sydney's urban research centre, said education rates are lagging in many outer suburbs, including western Sydney, the Sutherland shire and the northern peninsula. One factor is a lack of accessible university places, and skilled jobs, especially in western Sydney. "Western Sydney is producing scholars but they tend to move closer to the CBD because there are more skilled jobs there," he said. "If we want to stop the out migration of people with professional and higher order skills from western Sydney … we have to take seriously the need for a higher concentration of top-end jobs in western Sydney," he said. "The jobs deficit in western Sydney in the professional services and scientific areas is chronic." Ethnicity and religion

Sydney stands out for its ethnic diversity. More than a third of residents were born overseas, compared with less than a quarter nationwide. In one in three households in Sydney, a language other than English is spoken, compared with fewer than one in four nationwide. The most common languages in Sydney after English are Arabic and Mandarin. Sydney's varied ethnic roots have contributed to an eclectic religious profile. On average, the city is more devout than every other capital - 17.6 per cent of residents reported "no religion" which is well below the national average. Sydney has the nation's most God-fearing suburb - Horsley Park, near Fairfield - where 97 per cent claimed a religious affiliation, mostly Catholic. Loading But it also has the nation's least religious suburb, Darlington, where 48.2 per cent reported no religion. The census also revealed Sydney's northern "Bible belt" has been eclipsed by believers in the city's south-west. The proportion of people who affiliate themselves with a religion was significantly higher in Liverpool, Fairfield and Bankstown than in Sydney's traditional Bible-belt neighbourhoods such as Ku-ring-gai, the Hills shire and Hornsby shire.