Why is London so expensive? The most and least affordable things about the capital in 2025, from nightlife to art

The other week Time Out published the 2025 edition of our annual ranking of the best cities in the world – and, as always, London featured in the list. Our capital came fifth overall, beating the likes of Paris and Tokyo and getting praise for its ‘brilliant cuisine, unkillable pub culture, unrivalled shopping opportunities and (best of all) the all-encompassing range of its people’.

To come up with our 2025 ranking, Time Out surveyed over 18,000 city-dwellers around the globe on factors ranging from the quality of food scenes and variety of cultural offerings to general happiness. One of the factors concerned affordability – and, unsurprisingly, this is part of the study that London didn’t do so well in. 

Londoners were quizzed on the affordability of stuff like coffee, restaurants, live music and going for a pint, but one category stuck out in the data. Only a measly 16 percent said that going out to a club or on a night out was ‘affordable’. That’s right, 16 percent. 

Which won’t come as a surprise to most Londoners. While the capital has had some decent investment into nightlife venues over the past few years (as explained by Time Out London editor Joe Mackertich in the best cities list), a night out in the capital sure isn’t cheap. Pints, in particular, have gotten more expensive (reaching £8 last year), while nightclubs relocating further out of central London means that getting to and from venues costs a lot more. 

In other affordability categories London didn’t score much better. Only 35 percent of respondents said restaurants are affordable, live music got a 37 percent affordability rate and just 39 percent said theatre and comedy was comfortably within their means.

So what did London do well in, affordability-wise? Unsurprisingly, a massive 83 percent said it doesn’t cost too much to see art in the capital (here are London’s best bits of free art right now). Cinema tickets and coffee were also one of London’s higher ‘affordability’ areas, with scores of 56 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

Read more about Time Out’s best cities for 2025 here.

Did you see that this part of London is officially one of the UK’s best places to visit in 2025, according to Time Out?

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