London is the capital of Britain and one of the world's pre-eminent cities for finance, law, culture and startups. Its economy has had a bruising time since the financial crisis of 2007-08, battered further by Brexit and the pandemic.
London has earned the nickname "Londongrad" for its long history of courting wealthy foreigners, no matter how filthy their lucre. In 2024 Andrew Mitchell, then deputy foreign secretary, estimated that about 40% of the world's dirty money comes through the City of London, overseas territories and crown dependencies. The city's glitzy, mercenary, aspirational culture allows grifters and gangsters to thrive.
In the decade to 2007, output per hour worked by Londoners increased by 30%. In the years since, the capital's workers actually became less productive: hourly output in 2023 was 2% below pre-financial-crisis levels. London's lost productivity growth between 2007 and 2019 accounted for 42% of the nationwide slowdown. Despite this, the city's workforce ballooned from 4.8m in 2010 to 6.4m in 2025, while unemployment fell. Overall economic growth in London slowed from about 4% a year between 1999 and 2007 to just over 2% since.
London is one of only two regions, alongside the South East, where the government raises more revenue than it spends. Output per worker in financial services fell by over 2% a year on average between 2008 and 2024.
Some 40% of global business and financial transactions are governed by English law, and the Gothic courthouses around Temple form the legal capital of the world. The West End is the world's biggest theatre district, where 17m tickets were sold in 2024—40% more than on Broadway. Imperial College is the world's second-best university, according to the QS World University Rankings.
Over 60% of the city's workforce is made up of graduates, compared with less than 45% in New York. More than half of Britain's fastest-growing startups were founded by immigrants. Some 43% of deep-tech startups that have raised more than $10m since 2010 were academic spin-outs from British universities.
London has produced more unicorns ($1bn-plus startups) than Berlin, Paris and Tokyo combined. It is the world's fourth-largest venture hub, according to Dealroom. In 2025 its startups raised $17.7bn, behind only the Bay Area, New York and Los Angeles. Since 2020 Britain, with less than 1% of the global population, has captured more than 18% of global venture funding for quantum technology.
Former staff of London-based fintech unicorns, such as Revolut and Wise, have founded more than 230 startups—three times as many as in Berlin or Paris. DeepMind, bought by Google in 2014, has inspired a crop of ambitious AI startups. OpenAI picked London for its first foreign office. Palantir chose London for its largest base outside America thanks to the city's talent pool.
London struggles to fund companies at later stages, and loses its most promising firms too early. Deliveroo was bought by DoorDash for £2.9bn ($3.9bn). Gulf hubs such as Dubai, with their low taxes, appeal to repeat founders; the United Arab Emirates announced a campaign to make itself the startup capital of the world by 2031.
In 2025 London fell out of the top 20 markets for initial public offerings, beaten by Mexico and Oman.
Housing costs absorb around 30% of all disposable household income, according to Oxford Economics—much more than in Paris (23%) or Tokyo (24%). After housing costs, Londoners consume 7% less than the British average, despite earning 40% more. In 2023 almost 130,000 people left London for elsewhere in Britain, up from 40,000 in 2010. London has a target to build 88,000 homes each year; in 2025 work was started on fewer than 6,000 private homes.
Broadband links are about half as fast as in New York. Heathrow, the city's main airport, is running at 99% capacity. A third runway is not scheduled to be built until 2035. The extension of the Bakerloo Tube line is in limbo.
London has 1.1 homicides per 100,000 people, the lowest since comparable records began—safer than Paris (1.3) or Berlin (1.4). New York, a city roughly London's size, has almost three times as many homicides. Violent crime has been in decline for years. In 2024 the number of people admitted to hospital for "assault by sharp object" was the lowest in at least a decade. A 2025 YouGov poll found that 61% of Britons see London as unsafe (up from 39% in 2014), rising to 85% among Reform UK voters. Yet 81% of Londoners say their local area is safe.
Only 27% of people in the capital say they have no religion, compared with 39% in the rest of England and Wales. The 2021 census showed that 63% of London's children live in households headed by a married couple, higher than in any other region.
London is the only British region which would vote to re-elect Keir Starmer's Labour government, according to polls in early 2026. The city is now the most politically fragmented region in England, with threats to Labour from the Green Party, left-wing independents, the Conservatives in wealthy west London, and Reform UK in working-class outer-London constituencies. Jeremy Corbyn, a former Labour leader, was re-elected as an independent MP for Islington North in 2024.
A survey of 31 countries by Ipsos found that London is the most appealing city in the world to visit, work or live. BCG consistently ranks it the most attractive city for workers considering moving abroad.
A little experience often upsets a lot of theory.