Social justice is fundamental to building a fair and inclusive city. Despite its prosperity, London experiences high levels of inequality, with significant differences in opportunities and outcomes across communities. There is a clear pattern that Londoners living in the most deprived areas have poorer outcomes compared with those living in the least deprived areas across various measures. This chapter explores how far Londoners’ incomes meet their everyday needs, whether people are treated fairly, and the extent to which Londoners participate in civic life and support each other.
Income and poverty
This section examines rates of poverty and the extent to which Londoners are coping with the high cost of living.
When asked how they were coping financially in January 2026, 15% of Londoners said they were struggling1 . This is down from around 23% in June 2023, but remains above early-2022 levels.
Disabled Londoners, lower income groups, renters, Black Londoners and people in lower-skilled occupations, were more likely to say they were struggling financially.
Financially struggling Londoners are significantly more likely than other Londoners to be doing the main two actions to manage costs, which are ‘to spend less on non-essentials’ and ‘to buy cheaper products’.
According to the latest estimate, 19% of London’s population, or about 1.7 million Londoners, live in relative poverty. A person is considered in relative poverty if they are in a household with income below a given percentage of the UK median. The standard threshold is 60% of the UK median but, here, we use 50% of the UK median, as it reflects a deeper level of poverty.
This measure captures all income sources and covers an entire household. It also accounts for the value of housing costs, which are subtracted from total household income. It does not, however, capture the value of other ‘non-discretionary costs’ such as childcare, nor does it capture the value of savings or other household assets. It should be noted there is considerable uncertainty around estimates for recent years due to data collection issues during the pandemic, meaning year-on-year changes should be interpreted with caution.
With these caveats in mind, the rate of relative poverty in London increased in the latest estimate, climbing for the second year in a row, and is now above the pre-pandemic level.
Compared to the rest of the UK, London is the region with the highest proportion of residents in relative poverty, with Inner London showing particularly high poverty incidence at 23%. Outer London, though lower at 18%, still has a higher poverty incidence than all other regions and countries of the UK.
In the three years 2021-2024, 11% of households in London reported being behind with some or all of their household bills. This is nearly twice the proportion it was a decade ago in the three years 2014-2017 when 6% were in arrears.
The proportion of households with bills in arrears has been persistently higher in London compared to the UK over this period. In the three years 2021-2024, 8% of UK households were reported to be in arrears.
In the three years to 2024, social renters in London were much more likely to have household bills in arrears (24%) compared with private renters (15%) and owner occupiers (3%).
Food security measures whether households have sufficient food for an active and healthy lifestyle. Although 81% of households in London had high food security in 2024/25, 11% were classed as food insecure with either ‘very low’ or ‘low’ levels of food security 2 . This marks a two percentage point drop on the previous year, which was the highest level since the survey began in 2019/20. London was the region with the highest levels of food insecurity, with Inner London in particular having a high rate of 15%.
Food insecurity is higher in London than other parts of the UK where, on average, 9% of households suffered from either ‘very low’ or ‘low’ food security in 2024/25. Furthermore, in 2024/25, 5% of households in London had used a food bank within the last 12 months, compared with 3% of households across the UK.
Fairness and equality
This section examines how Londoners feel they are treated by others and inequalities in pay between different groups, focusing on disparities linked to protected characteristics and socio‑economic factors.
In 2021/22, 36% of Londoners reported being treated unfairly in the past 12 months because of one or several protected characteristics, or because of their social class, excluding by friends and family. This was not significantly different from the 2018-19 survey (35%).
Examining unfair treatment by characteristic, ethnicity was the most common (19%), followed by sex (13%), age (12%), social class (8%) and religion (6%).
The pattern of how different ethnic groups experienced unfair treatment has largely remained the same since 2018/19. However, Black Londoners were the only ethnic group to have experienced an increase in unfair treatment as a result of their ethnicity (from 26% to 43%).
A hate crime is defined as ‘any incident perceived by the victim or any other person to be racist, homophobic, transphobic, or due to a person’s religion, belief, gender identity or disability’. Between April 2025 and March 2026, 22,800 hate crime offences were recorded in London. This marks an increase of around 1,500 recorded hate crime offences on the previous year (April 2024-March 2025), when recording started in the new system3 .
The chart shows monthly variations in hate crime. In line with seasonal trends observed in the previous year, the number of hate crime offences steadily increased over spring and summer and steadily declined over autumn and winter.
Pay gaps exist because one group is paid, on average, less than another group. The gender pay gap is calculated across all employee jobs based in London or for the UK as a whole. It is not comparing levels of pay of men and women doing the same job. There are many factors influencing pay levels, including the type of job, the employer, the place of work, the level of responsibility, etc.
On average, female employees in London are paid 12% less per hour than male employees, a similar gap to the UK which is 13%. The pay gap has narrowed over time. Since 1997, when this time series begins, it has decreased by 10 percentage points in London and 14 percentage points in the UK.
There is a large gap of 18% between the median hourly pay of White employees and Black, Asian and minority ethnic employees in London. This compares to a gap of around 8% in the UK. Since 2017, the ethnicity pay gap has fallen by 6 percentage points in London.
In 2025, the pay gap between disabled and non-disabled workers, based on the median pay, is estimated at 14% in London and 10% for the UK as a whole. There is a relatively high degree of volatility in the data, due to smaller sample sizes. In the three years between 2021 and 2023, it was the case that the London disability pay gap was smaller than that for the UK. However, in the two most recent years, the disability pay gap in London has risen above the disability pay gap for the UK.
Community participation
This section explores levels of community and civic participation, focusing on participation in local elections and people’s perceptions of whether they can influence decisions in their area.
Voter registration is a key pillar of social integration. Not being registered to vote has other adverse impacts aside from not being able to vote in elections; for example, it can negatively affect people’s credit rating or mean they are ineligible for jury service.
The voter registration rate in London has remained high since 2011, though it has been declining since 2020. In 2011, 91% of eligible adults were registered for local elections but by 2023, it had fallen to 85%. In other words, around one in seven Londoners (15%) were not registered to vote in 2023. The voter registration rate has been consistently lower in London than in England over the last decade, by on average five percentage points.
It should be noted that the denominator used is all adults aged 18 and over. This is slightly inaccurate as not all adults are eligible to vote4 . This means the local election registration rate is likely to be slightly higher than presented here.
28% of Londoners said they felt that they could personally influence decisions in their local area in 2024/25, a slight increase from 27% in 2023/24.
The perception of being able to influence decisions has been persistently higher in London than England since the series began in 2013/14. Over that time frame there has been a slight downward trend in the percentage for both London and England.
Community cohesion
This section provides a selection of indicators about London’s neighbourhoods and whether people from different backgrounds feel connected and able to get along.
Neighbourhood cohesion, defined here as the proportion of Londoners who agree that their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together, has remained above 90% each month since the start of the pandemic. As of December 2025, 96% of Londoners agreed with the statement. Looking further back to 2008, neighbourhood cohesion was much lower, with agreement to the statement from around three quarters (73%) of Londoners.
In 2024/25, the majority of Londoners (93%) agreed that there were people who would be there for them if they needed help. This is very similar to the proportion across England (94%).
Social isolation has regularly been slightly lower in London compared with England since 2013/14, though the gap is not significant.
Formal volunteering refers to giving unpaid help through clubs or organisations. Three in ten (30%) Londoners aged 16 and over said they had formally volunteered in 2024/25.
The percentage of people reporting that they had formally volunteered in the last year has fallen in London by 11 percentage points since 2013/14, a trend mirrored across England, which saw an even larger decrease of 17 percentage points.
Informal volunteering refers to giving unpaid help to individuals who are not a relative. Just under half (45%) of Londoners informally volunteered in 2024/25.
Since 2013/14, the percentage of people in London reporting that they had informally volunteered has followed a downward trajectory. From 2020/21, informal volunteering rates decreased both in London and across England by 10 percentage points.
Social action is about being involved with issues affecting the local area, for example, setting up or stopping the closure of a service/amenity, running a local service on a voluntary basis, or helping to organise a street party or community event. In 2024/25, 16% of Londoners said they had been involved in social action compared to 13% in England. This percentage has fallen from 2013/14 when it was 21% in London and 19% in England.
In 2024/25, around one third of Londoners (31%) agreed that many of the people in their local neighbourhood could be trusted. Since 2013/14, when it was 34% in London, the percentage agreeing to the statement has not changed much. The proportion agreeing across England has, however, declined from 48% to 40%. Neighbourhood trust has regularly been lower in London compared with England since 2013/14, though the gap has narrowed in recent years.
In 2024/25, 62% of Londoners reported chatting to their neighbours at least once a month. This is lower than the England average, which was 69% in the same year. Talking to neighbours has been less common in London compared with England since the series began in 2013/14 and for both it is now at its lowest level.