Most Londoners are now comfortable with returning to the city centre, while confidence in the job market is at its highest since last year, according to a new survey published by Centre for London.

The survey is the fourth issue of The London Intelligence by Centre for London in partnership with Savanta. The previous survey was undertaken in January 2021.

The survey, which asked 1,500 Londoners how their daily lives have been affected by the pandemic, found that:

Nearly two thirds of Londoners (62 per cent) said they now felt comfortable visiting central London. This is an increase of almost 10 percentage points from September 2020, when only 52 per cent said they were confident to do so. Young people aged 16-34 were most likely to say they were comfortable with going into the city centre (70 per cent) compared to Londoners aged over 55 (52 per cent).
Confidence in the job market is also increasing. Londoners are feeling more optimistic about their employment prospects than at any other point in the last year. 45 per cent of Londoners said they were optimistic about their employment prospects for the next 12 months. Over half of respondents (56 per cent) are also confident that they could find another job in the next three months if they left their current job. This has risen from 47 per cent in June 2020. Older people, women, and less well-off Londoners were more likely to be pessimistic about their prospects.

There has also been a small drop in the number of Londoners who have seen their disposable income fall because of the pandemic: 41 per cent of respondents reported a drop in disposable income compared to 44 per cent in January 2021. However, this isn’t reflected equally across all groups, with women, self-employed and Black, Asian and minority ethnic Londoners much more likely to have seen their disposable income fall during the pandemic.

Author: Ben Brown
Source: City Matters