Gentrification across London - methodology

This page sets out the methodology we used in our Gentrification across London analysis.

To identify parts of London where gentrification is likely taking place, we looked at how incomes have changed across neighbourhoods between 2012 and 2020. We identified 53 neighbourhoods we’ve classed as having been gentrified in this time period. You can find a full list of these 53 neighbourhoods towards the bottom of the page.

Data sources:

To identify gentrified areas in London we looked at income estimates for small areas, MSOA level (2010/12-2018/2020), using 2020 prices.

To explore population changes, we used the 2011 and 2021 Censuses

We also explored:

• House price changes between 2010-2023
• Changes in primary school applications between 2013/14 and 2023/24

Our definition of gentrification:

The influx of more affluent residents in lower income areas, relative to the residents that were already there, and the displacement of the previous population.

How we identified the areas of London that have experienced gentrification

To identify which neighbourhoods in London have experienced gentrification, we explored how incomes have changed between 2012 and 2020 (the most recent year we have data for).

Between these two time periods, incomes across MSOAs have been relatively stable, when taking inflation into account.

The neighbourhoods in the lowest 60% of incomes saw their average incomes rise very slightly. The highest income MSOAs in 2012 saw a slight dip in their median incomes in 2020.

We focused on how incomes have changed in neighbourhoods between 2012 and 2020

The chart below is the key one that helped us identify which neighbourhoods have experienced gentrification. It shows a distribution of the percentage change in median incomes in MSOAs between 2012 and 2020.

On the far right of the chart, we can see a long tail of neighbourhoods in green. There are neighbourhoods  which, in 2012, had the lowest 20% of incomes and since then have seen the biggest increase in their median incomes. This indicates that lower income areas have seen their average incomes increase more than more affluent areas.

We decided to focus our analysis only on those which had the lowest 20% of incomes in 2012.

Identifying which of these neighbourhoods had experienced gentrification 

To narrow down the neighbourhoods which in 2012 had the lowest 20% of incomes and had experienced gentrification in the years to 2020, we used the below chart.

This plot shows area incomes in 2012 and 2020 for those areas that were in the lowest income quintile in 2012, with the median incomes for each year annotated. We are interested in the areas with the highest income rises - areas that were below the median in 2012 and above the median in 2020.

These are the neighbourhoods in the top left box. Those are the 53 neighbourhoods we identified as experiencing gentrification.

Neighbourhoods we've identified as gentrified by borough

Full list of neighbourhoods we've identified as gentrified