London Population by Borough: How Many People Live in London

About 9.1 million people live in London. The official estimate for mid-2025 is 9,122,909, which is 26,737 fewer than a year earlier.

That small fall made London the only region of England to shrink that year, while England as a whole grew by 0.39%. Twenty-three of London's 33 council areas lost people. So where did London lose people, and why?

Article updated: September 2026

London here means Greater London: the 32 boroughs plus the City of London. Together they hold 15.5% of everyone living in England.

London's Population by Borough: Mid-2025 Estimates

In the year to mid-2025, ten of London's council areas grew and 23 shrank.

Barking and Dagenham grew fastest, up 1.46%. Havering added the most people, about 3,700. At the other end, Camden fell furthest in percentage terms, down 1.77%, and Southwark lost the most people, about 4,700.

The table lists every borough from the biggest population to the smallest. The ONS's Inner London and Outer London areas, then London and England, sit at the bottom for comparison.

Source: ONS mid-year population estimates via Nomis, all ages. Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0.

Most of the growth was in Outer London. It gained about 4,200 people over the year while Inner London lost about 30,900. Eight of the ten council areas that grew are in Outer London. The other two, the City of London and Wandsworth, are in Inner London, and Wandsworth added just 132 people.

The biggest percentage falls were in central London. Camden, Westminster, Southwark and Lambeth each lost more than 1.4% of their residents in a single year, and Kensington and Chelsea lost just over 1%.

These are still small moves. Camden's fall of 3,900 people is less than 2% of the borough.

Croydon is the biggest borough, with about 410,000 people, just ahead of Barnet on about 408,000. Kensington and Chelsea is the smallest of the 32 boroughs at about 146,000, and the City of London has only about 15,600 residents.

How London's Population Has Changed Since 2011

London is still much bigger than it was in 2011. It grew from about 8.2 million at mid-2011 to 9.1 million at mid-2025, roughly 920,000 more people. That is a rise of 11.2%, a touch ahead of England's 10.8%. London's share of England's population barely moved, from 15.4% to 15.5%.

The path was not a straight line. London grew every year to mid-2019, when it reached about 8.9 million. Then it fell two years in a row, to about 8.8 million by mid-2021.

After that came a sharp climb. London added about 150,000 people in the year to mid-2023 alone, its biggest one-year rise since 2011, and reached its highest figure on record, just under 9.15 million, at mid-2024. The year to mid-2025 is the first fall since the year to mid-2021.

London has shrunk for long stretches before. The GLA's historical population figures show it peaked at 8.61 million in 1939 and fell to 6.7 million by 1988. The ONS estimates put London back above that 1939 peak in 2015.

The table shows London and England, the ONS's Inner and Outer London areas, the three boroughs that added the most people since 2011, and the three that lost people.

Source: ONS mid-year population estimates via Nomis, all ages. Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0.

The biggest gains since 2011 were in the east. Tower Hamlets added about 78,000 people, more than any other borough. Newham added about 66,000 and Barking and Dagenham about 51,000.

Camden, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea are the only boroughs with fewer residents at mid-2025 than at mid-2011. Kensington and Chelsea is down 7.9%.

The City of London more than doubled over the same years, from about 7,400 residents to about 15,600, with most of the jump since mid-2021. It is still tiny. Tower Hamlets added more than nine times as many as the City of London did.

Why London's Population Fell

More people moved out of London to the rest of the UK than moved in, and that outweighed everything London gained in other ways.

The ONS mid-2025 estimates show London still had more births than deaths in the year to mid-2025. More people also moved to London from abroad than left it for abroad. Both added people, but not enough to cover the moves out to other parts of the UK. Every other English region grew that year.

London Population Density

London is packed tight by English standards. The Census density figures put it at 5,598 people per square kilometre in 2021, about 14,500 per square mile. England as a whole had 434 per square kilometre, so London is nearly 13 times as crowded.

Tower Hamlets is the densest borough, at 15,703 people per square kilometre. It was the most crowded council area in England and Wales at the 2021 Census, and the 20 most crowded were all in London.

At the other end, Bromley has 2,198 people per square kilometre. That is the most room in London, and still five times the England figure. The table runs from densest to least dense, with London and England at the bottom.

Source: Census 2021, TS006 population density via Nomis. Square-mile figures are converted from square kilometres. Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0.

What the 2021 Census Shows About Households and Renting

London households rent far more than households across England, the 2021 Census shows. On the Census tenure figures, 30.0% of London households rented privately, against 20.5% across England. Social renting was higher too, at 23.1% against 17.1%.

Home ownership was lower, at 46.8% of London households, whether outright, with a mortgage or through shared ownership. Across England the figure was 62.3%.

Borough by borough, the gap is wide. Havering had the highest home ownership in London at 70.5%, counting shared ownership, and Tower Hamlets the lowest at 25.7%. Private renting was highest in the City of London, at 48.3% of households, with Westminster next at 43.3%.

London had 3,423,889 households. On the Census resident counts, that's about 2.5 people per household, a little more than the 2.4 across England.

Counting people rather than households, the 2021 Census found 8,799,728 Londoners, 7.7% more than in 2011. The ONS's mid-2021 estimate is slightly higher, at 8,804,769. The two are different counts. The Census counts everyone once every ten years. The mid-year estimates are the ONS's yearly update between Censuses, rolled forward from the last Census using births, deaths and moves. That's why you'll see two slightly different figures for London in 2021.

One year of population change does not tell you what rents will do. It does tell you which way the head count moved in each borough.

Each borough has its own guide with prices, rents and yields, gathered in our guide to buy to let in London. Our UK rental market guide compares the London rental property market with every other region. Many of the same boroughs appear in our comparison of the best rental yields in the UK, next to towns and cities outside London.

If you are buying, our buy to let property for sale page lists current deals from across the UK, as do our UK investment properties and below market value properties pages.

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