It has its own economy that comprises business parks and a shopping centre with a long high street.

During Saxon times, the Manor of Horley came under the control of the Benedictine Abbey of St Peter at Chertsey.

The Manor passed to Henry VIII on the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 and changed hands several times during the next sixty years.

When he left for Kenya in 1938 he gifted a Malayan basket and autographed photograph of himself to the Scouts Horley District.

The removal of Gatwick Airport and the surrounding area from Surrey into West Sussex met some fierce local opposition with the result that the parishes of Horley and Charlwood were subsequently returned to Surrey in the eponymous Charlwood and Horley Act 1974, leaving the airport to stay in West Sussex.

The Horley Master Plan, approved by Reigate & Banstead Borough Council in February 2005, permits almost 2,600 new homes to be built.

[12] In May 2016, the Conservative-led town council elected David Jackson as deputy mayor, even though he was at the time on bail and under investigation for sexually and indecently assaulting girls under the age of thirteen; he was subsequently convicted.

Due to public opposition to these the changes, they were returned to Surrey in the Charlwood and Horley Act 1974, although the airport and Lowfield Heath stayed in West Sussex.

The proportion of households in the civil parish who owned their home outright compares to the regional average of 35.1%.

There has been a substantial increase in housing and population since 2011, including the large new development at Westvale Park north west of the town centre.

Horley was also home to the Matbro works which produced forklift trucks from the 1950s to the 1980s and pioneered telescopic handlers.

[20] Today, about a third of the population work locally, while another third commute south to Gatwick and Crawley, and the final third travel further to London, Redhill and Reigate.

[22] Horley is served by Metrobus and Southdown bus routes connecting with Redhill, Three Bridges, Crawley, East Grinstead, Caterham and Gatwick Airport, as well as the outlying villages of Charlwood and Smallfield.

[30] Horley has cricket, hockey, tennis, bowls, running[31] and, since the first part of the 21st century, rugby union clubs.