We present the results of a 0.86 square degree CCD photometric survey of the open cluster NGC 2516, which has an age of about 150Myr and may have a much lower metallicity than the similarly-aged Pleiades. Our BVI_c_ survey of cluster members is complete to V~20 and is used to select a preliminary catalogue of 1254 low mass (0.<M<2.0M_{sun}_) cluster candidates, of which about 70-80 percent are expected to be genuine. After applying corrections for contamination by non-members and adding data for higher mass stars from the literature, we investigate the cluster binarity, luminosity and mass function, mass segregation and total mass. We find a binary fraction of 26+/-5%, for A to M-type systems with mass ratios between 0.6 and 1, which is very similar to the Pleiades.